wing
where she was going until she found herself held up with a stream of
pedestrians at the island intersection of Waterloo Bridge and the Strand.
She thought the policeman who was regulating the traffic eyed her
curiously, and, more with the object of evading his eye than with any set
plan in her mind, she stepped into an empty taxi-cab which was waiting to
cross the street.

"Where to, ma'am?" asked the driver.

"Where to?" she repeated vacantly. With an effort of will she
concentrated her thoughts on the task in front of her, and hastily added,
"To Victoria, as quick as you can. No--wait--driver, first take me to the
nearest bookstall."

The taxi-cab took her to a bookstall in the Strand, where she got out and
purchased a railway guide. As the taxi-cab proceeded towards Victoria she
hastily turned the pages to the trains for Dellmere. She had never been
to Dellmere, but she had heard from Miss Fewbanks that her father's place
was reached from a station called Horleydene, on the main line to
Wennesden, and that though there were many through trains, comparatively
few stopped at Horleydene. But she was unused to time-tables, and found
it difficult to grasp the information she required. There was such a
bewildering diversity of letters at the head of the lists of trains for
that line, and so many reference notes on different pages to be looked up
before it was possible to ascertain with any degree of certainty what
trains stopped at Horleydene on week-days, that, in her shaken frame of
mind, with the necessity for hurry haunting her, she became confused,
and failed to comprehend the perplexing figures. She signalled to the
driver to stop, and handed him the book.

"I cannot understand this time-table," she said, in an agitated way.
"Would you find out for me, please, when the next train leaves Victoria
for Horleydene?"

The driver consulted the time-table with a businesslike air.

"The next train leaves at 12.40," he informed her. "After that there
isn't another one stopping there till 4.5."

Mrs. Holymead consulted her watch anxiously.

"It's almost half-past twelve now. Can you catch the 12.40?" she asked.

The driver looked dubious.

"I'll try, ma'am, but it'll take some doing. It depends whether I get a
clear run at Trafalgar Square."

"Try, try!" she cried. "Catch it, and I will double your fare."

She caught the train with a few seconds to spare. She had a first-class
compartment to herself, and as