Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 24).djvu/99

Rh head. But surely we are slowing down? We are going to stop."

And the train really was drawing up at an unimportant little station where perhaps no express train had ever stopped before, and the officials of this station came running along the footboard even before she had stopped, looking into all the carriages. And there was a great commotion when they came to Lily's carriage, which looked almost as if it had been wrecked, and there were hurried questions and explanations, and much commiseration for the young lady.

But the train was bound to reach Ipswich at a fixed hour. There could be no delaying. Two guards were put into the carriage to take care of the unfortunate lunatic, and Lily's property was collected and carried by willing hands to another compartment. In less than five minutes the train was off again, and Lily and the young man in grey, sitting facing one another, were once more rushing through the green open country. But what a difference there was in the girl's feelings! How calm, how relieved, how happy she felt now!

"You must have had an awful moment when you first realized he was mad," said the young man.

"Oh, I felt as though my hair were going grey. Has it gone grey, perhaps?" she asked, anxiously. "For I have heard of such things happening."

"No; it's yellowthe colour of corn in the sun," said the young man, gravely.

"I'm so glad," exclaimed Lily, joyfully, "for I am going to a dance to-night, and it would have been horrid to have looked in the glass and found I had grey hair."

"I, too, to-night am going to a dance," said the young man, "and I was to have escorted some ladies down from town who were going to it too; but as they did not turn up at the station I was going to wait for the next train, which starts twenty minutes later, as I supposed they had missed the express, when your message reached me."

"What made you see at once that it was serious? I was so afraid it might be thought just a joke."

"Oh, I had noticed you on the station long before, and I knew you were not the sort of girl to play that kind of joke," said the young man, gravely, and Lily blushed with a certain pleasure at his words.

"Poor auntie will be so dreadfully upset when she hears of my adventures. She was to have come with me, but I left her in bed this morning with neuralgia. She hated my having to travel alone; although, of course, we never could have imagined anything so dreadful as this."

"Have you friends to meet you at Ipswich?" asked the young man.

"Oh, yes, the Parkers will meet me. Maggie Parker is my greatest friend. And it is at their house that the dance is to be to-night."

"So you know the Parkers? That's splendid! For I, too, know them very well. And I, too, am going down expressly for that dance. It's jolly to think I shall see you again."

The delightful and amazing turn things were taking gave a new lustre to Lily's blue eyes and began to bring back some colour to her pale face. And while she sat in a kind of joy dream, glancing every now and then shyly at the handsome, open, sunburnt face of the young man in grey, Ipswich was reached and her attention was turned to a group of young people on the platform awaiting the arrival of the train.

"Oh, there are the Parkers!" cried Lily. "How nice! There are Maggie, and Ethel, and Joe."

And "Lily, dearest!" cried a girl, running forward as she and the young man in grey got out of the train, "there you are! And where is Mrs. Walters? Neuralgia? Oh, I'm so sorry! And mother will be disappointed. But Frank has managed, I see, to find you out after all. Very clever of him, since we told him to look out for two ladies, one of whom would have white curls. How did you manage, Frank, to recognise Lily Freeston all by herself?"

Lily stared in helpless bewilderment, for the young man in grey was kissing the Parker girls all round in the most brotherly fashion.

"But don't you know it's Frank?" cried Maggie Parker, astonished in her turn. "You must have often heard us speak of Frank, our sailor brother, and he has run up from Portsmouth on purpose to come to our dance. Do you mean to say you have travelled all the way from London together and still require to be introduced?"

"Oh, we have a great deal to tell you," said Lieutenant Parker, "but I suggest that we don't tell it here or now. Miss Freeston is looking pale and tired. Let us take her home and restore her with some tea. After tea you shall hear the whole exciting story."

Lily was very grateful for the suggestion. For now that the danger was over and the reaction had set in, she was really feeling strangely tired and weak. And yet in her heart the sun was shining too, for she knew that for herself another and an exquisite story had begun.