Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/279

 in London, where he will be?" Terry asked herself. She wondered if it could possibly be on account of Major Smedley, who chose to take his departure from St. Pierre de Chartreuse at the hour when Sir Ian went; but she could scarcely believe it was because of the old mischief-maker. London was a large place. Even Major Smedley could not find fault with them for being in London at the same time; and in any case he could say no worse things than he was prepared to say now.

At Paris Nora was so ill with a terrible nervous headache that Terry feared congestion of the brain for the girl. It was not possible to go on; so, thinking of Sir Ian and the letter he would be expecting, she telegraphed him that she was unavoidably delayed. "Will wire again after seeing doctor, when we shall be able to start," she added.

Next day Nora was better, and, though very weak, insisted that she was able to travel, grew feverish at the suggestion of being detained longer, and at last forced the French doctor, called in by Miss Ricardo, to consent to her wish with a shrug of the shoulders. "She may grow worse if we compel her to wait. She is a true woman," he said to Terry, with the smile of a much-enduring, much-experienced medical man.

Accordingly, the girl had her way, and they left Paris on the eleven o'clock train. Terry was by this time almost as anxious to get on as Nora herself,