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Having realised this, she became calmer and went about her preparations for departure with an easier ood chance that she ht be in time to intervene She wound up her affairs in New York and, on the following Wednesday, boarded the Nuronia bound for Southampton

The Nuronia is one of the slowest of the Cunard boats It was built at a time when delirious crowds used to swoon on the dock if an ocean liner broke the record by getting across in nine days It rolled over to Cherbourg, dallied at that picturesque port for some hours, then sauntered across the Channel and strolled into Southa of the day on which Sa with Webster, the valet At alh the s of the drawing-roonett was standing at the Custo to declare

Mrs Hignett was a general who believed in forced ht have taken the boat-train to London and proceeded to Windles at her ease on the following afternoon Mrs Hignett wasfortified herself with a late dinner, she hired an automobile and set out on the cross-country journey It was only when the car, a genuine antique, had broken down three times in the first ten miles, that it becao to Windles that night, and she directed the driver to take her instead to the "Blue Boar" in Windlehurst, where she arrived, tired but thankful to have reached it at all, at about eleven o'clock

At this pointjourney, would have gone to bed: but the fae that half an hour's walking would take her to her beloved holimpse of Windles she felt that she ht, if only to assure herself that it was still there She had a cup of coffee and a sandwich brought to her by the night-porter, whom she had roused from sleep, for bedtime is early in Windlehurst, and then infor when she returned

Her heart leaped joyfully as she turned in at the drive gates of her ho under her feet The silhouette of the ruined castle against the su wanderers know And, when she stepped on to the lawn and looked at the black bulk of the house, indistinct and shadoith its backing of trees, tears came into her eyes She experienced a rush of emotion which made her feel quite faint, and which lasted until, on tiptoeing nearer to the house in order to gloat more adequately upon it, she perceived that the French s of the drawing-roo ajar Sam had left them like this in order to facilitate departure, if a hurried departure should by any mischance be rendered necessary, and drawn curtains had kept the household fro the fact