Louis knew where that letter was, for having seen it on her desk he had,
without reading it, torn it up and thrown it into the waste-paper basket,
thinking the less that remained to remind her of the young philosopher
the better.

'I destroyed it,' he said.

'O Louis! why did you?' she cried. 'I am going to follow him; I think it
best to do so; and I want to know if he is gone--and now the date is
lost!'

'Going to run after St. Cleeve? Absurd!'

'Yes, I am!' she said with vehement firmness. 'I must see him; I want to
speak to him as soon as possible.'

'Good Lord, Viviette! Are you mad?'

'O what was the date of that ship! But it cannot be helped. I start at
once for Southampton. I have made up my mind to do it. He was going to
his uncle's solicitors in the North first; then he was coming back to
Southampton. He cannot have sailed yet.'

'I believe he has sailed,' muttered Louis sullenly.

She did not wait to argue with him, but returned upstairs, where she rang
to tell Green to be ready with the pony to drive her to Warborne station
in a quarter of an hour.

XXXVIII

Viviette's determination to hamper Swithin no longer had led her, as has
been shown, to balk any weak impulse to entreat his return, by forbidding
him to furnish her with his foreign address. His ready disposition, his
fear that there might be other reasons behind, made him obey her only too
literally. Thus, to her terror and dismay, she had placed a gratuitous
difficulty in the way of her present endeavour.

She was ready before Green, and urged on that factotum so wildly as to
leave him no time to change his corduroys and 'skitty-boots' in which he
had been gardening; he therefore turned himself into a coachman as far
down as his waist merely--clapping on his proper coat, hat, and
waistcoat, and wrapping a rug over his horticultural half below. In this
compromise he appeared at the door, mounted, and reins in hand.

Seeing how sad and determined Viviette was, Louis pitied her so far as to
put nothing in the way of her starting, though he forbore to help her. He
thought her conduct sentimental foolery, the outcome of mistaken pity and
'such a kind of gain-giving as would trouble a woman;' and he decided
that it would be better to let this mood burn itself out than to keep it
smouldering by obstruction.

'Do you remember the date of his sailing?' she said finally, as the pony-
carriage turned to drive off.

'He sails