Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/289

 One of the doctors interested in her case (she having given a false name) believed that she had well-to-do relatives in England, and lent her money to buy a third-class ticket.

After reaching London she had but a shilling left, and started to walk the thirty miles to Riding St. Mary, hoping to sleep in a barn on the way, and expecting to get help from Barr at the end of the journey. On the way, between Havershall and Riding St. Mary, she was amazed and overjoyed to see Ernest Bayne on a bicycle. Standing directly in his path, she motioned him to stop, and he did so before recognizing her, changed as she was. Rather than make a scene and have her "go screaming after him," he listened to the story of her sufferings, pretended remorse, excused himself as well as he could, and said that, as he now loved his wife, he would do anything rather than she should hear of his treachery to another woman, one "so much below him socially." He had heard from Barr (who had by this time resigned his stewardship and gone away) that "Liane had disappeared," otherwise he would not have ventured to return to Surrey, necessary as it was that he should settle various matters and try to sublet Deodar Lodge. He admitted that he was on his way to the house, which was in charge of a caretaker, and swore to Liane that if she would "forgive and forget," and burn his letters, he would make her a present of three thousand