I said I did trust her, and that God knew I didn’t want to interfere, but was she quite sure she was doing a wise thing?

She said, “Quite sure.  Let’s go and lie down in the pine-wood till tea-time.  I wonder if Jimmy would mind us going into Midhurst with the car.  We shouldn’t hurt it, sitting in it.”

We lay out in the pine-wood till we heard the bell for tea, which we had ordered a little before four, in case Jevons should wire for the car to meet him by the early afternoon train that got to Midhurst at four-sixteen.

The table was set as usual in the garden on the lawn in front of the house.

By four o’clock no wire had come from Jevons; so we knew we needn’t expect him till a later train.  He nearly always came by Waterloo and Petersfield and was met at Midhurst, which gave him his public.  But he might come, as Viola had gone, by Victoria and Horsham and be met at Selham.

I remember saying, in a startling manner as the idea struck me, “Supposing he comes by Victoria?”

And Norah said, “What if he does?”

And I, “They might meet at Horsham.”

“Why shouldn’t they?” she said.  “You don’t suppose he’ll eat her for running up to town?”

“He might,” I said, “think it odd of her.”

“Not he.  The beauty of Jimmy is that odd things don’t seem odd to him.  Do you know where Charlie is?”

I didn’t.  We had finished tea before either of us had thought of him.  We shouted to him through the open windows of the house, for Charlie had a habit of mooning about indoors till Viola was ready to walk with him.

No answer came to our summons, but it brought Parker, the butler, out on to the lawn.  He had a slightly surprised and slightly embarrassed look on his respectable and respectful face, no longer demoralized by Jimmy.

“Were you looking for the Captain, sir?” he said.

I said we were.

Something grave and a little sorrowful came into Parker’s embarrassed look.

“Didn’t you know he’d gone, sir?”

I said I didn’t even know he was going; and then I saw Norah looking at me.

Parker was trying not to look at Norah.  He began gathering up the tea-things as if to justify his presence and explain it.

“When did he go?” I said as casually as I could.

“Well, sir—­the cab was ordered to catch the four thirty-five from Midhurst.”

Now the four thirty-five from Midhurst is the four forty-five from Selham, the train that Viola had gone by.  We knew this; and Parker knew that we knew it.  That was why, instead of stating outright that Captain Thesiger had gone by that train, he tried to soften the blow to us by saying that the cab had been ordered to catch it, and leaving it open to us to suppose that perhaps, after all, it might have missed it.

“Did he say when he was coming back?” I asked, again casually.

“He isn’t coming back, sir,” said Parker.  “He’s took his luggage with him and all.”