‘The cook’s mother really is ill,’ said Mrs. Malory, ’and she wants dreadfully to go and see her.  That would do.’

‘All things work together for good.  The cook must have a telegram also,’ said Mrs. Brown-Smith.

The day, which had been extremely hot, clouded over.  By five it was raining:  by six there was a deluge.  At seven, Matilda and the Vidame were evicted from their dusky window seat by the butler with a damp telegraph envelope.  The Vidame opened it, and handed it to Matilda.  His presence at Paris was instantly demanded.  The Vidame was desolated, but his absence could not be for more than five days.  Bradshaw was hunted for, and found:  the 9.50 train was opportune.  The Vidame’s man packed his clothes.  Mrs. Brown-Smith was apprised of these occurrences in the drawing-room before dinner.

‘I am very sorry for dear Matilda,’ she cried.  ’But it is an ill wind that blows nobody good.  I will drive over with the Vidame and astonish my Johnnie by greeting him at the station.  I must run and change my dress.’

She ran, she returned in morning costume, she heard from Mrs. Malory of the summons by telegram calling the cook to her moribund mother.  ’I must send her over to the station in a dog-cart,’ said Mrs. Malory.

‘Oh no,’ cried Mrs. Brown-Smith, with impetuous kindness, ’not on a night like this; it is a cataclysm.  There will be plenty of room for the cook as well as for Methven and me, and the Vidame, in the brougham.  Or he can sit on the box.’

The Vidame really behaved very well.  The introduction of the cook, to quote an old novelist, ’had formed no part of his profligate scheme of pleasure.’  To elope from a hospitable roof, with a married lady, accompanied by her maid, might be an act not without precedent.  But that a cook should come to form une partie carree, on such an occasion, that a lover should be squeezed with three women in a brougham, was a trying novelty.

The Vidame smiled, ‘An artist so excellent,’ he said, ’deserves a far greater sacrifice.’

So it was arranged.  After a tender and solitary five minutes with Matilda, the Vidame stepped, last, into the brougham.  The coachman whipped up the horses, Matilda waved her kerchief from the porch, the guilty lovers drove away.  Presently Mrs. Malory received, from her daughter’s maid, the letter destined by the Vidame for Matilda.  Mrs. Malory locked it up in her despatch box.

The runaways, after a warm and uncomfortable drive of three-quarters of an hour, during which the cook wept bitterly and was very unwell, reached the station.  Contrary to the Vidame’s wish, Mrs. Brown-Smith, in an ulster and a veil, insisted on perambulating the platform, buying the whole of Mr. Hall Caine’s works as far as they exist in sixpenny editions.  Bells rang, porters stationed themselves in a line, like fielders, a train arrived, the 9.17 from Liverpool, twenty minutes late.  A short stout gentleman emerged from a smoking carriage, Mrs. Brown-Smith, starting from the Vidame’s side, raised her veil, and threw her arms round the neck of the traveller.