Her wild
purpose was to travel to London, and catch a glimpse of Geoffrey's face
in the House of Commons, if possible, and then return. She put on her
bonnet and best dress; the latter was very plainly made of simple grey
cloth, but on her it looked well enough, and in the breast of it she
thrust the letter which she had written on the previous day. A small
hand-bag, with some sandwiches and a brush and comb in it, and a cloak,
made up the total of her baggage.
The train, which did not stop at Bryngelly, left Coed at ten, and Coed
was an hour and a half's walk. She must be starting. Of course, she
would have to be absent for the night, and she was sorely puzzled how
to account for her absence to Betty, the servant girl; the others
being gone there was no need to do so to anybody else. But here fortune
befriended her. While she was thinking the matter over, who should come
in but Betty herself, crying. She had just heard, she said, that her
little sister, who lived with their mother at a village about ten miles
away, had been knocked down by a cart and badly hurt. Might she go home
for the night? She could come back on the morrow, and Miss Beatrice
could get somebody in to sleep if she was lonesome.
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