Her Ladyship's Elephant

"That was the Exeter division. Went five minutes ago."

"But I thought we had ten minutes!"

"This division, yes, sir," replied the guard, indicating that portion of the train still in the station, "the forward part only five."

In this way, then, had Allingford unconsciously deceived him, and without doubt the American Consul had been carried off with his, Scarsdale's, wife. The awful discovery staggered him, but he controlled himself sufficiently to ask the destination of the section still in the station.

"Bournemouth, sir, Southampton first stop. Are you going? we are just off."

"No," replied Scarsdale. The guard waved his flag, the shrill whistle blew, and the train began to move. Then he thought of Mrs. Allingford; he could scarcely leave her. Besides, what was the use of remaining at Basingstoke, when he did not even know his own destination? He tore open the door of the carriage he had just left, and swung himself in as it swept past him.

CHAPTER IV

IN WHICH LADY MELTON FEELS THAT HER AVERSION IS JUSTIFIED

From what has been said it may be imagined that Mrs. Scarsdale, née Vernon, was an excellent hand at light and amusing conversation; and so pleasantly did she receive the Consul, and so amusingly rally him on the events of the day, that he scarcely seemed to have been with her a minute, when a slight jolt caused him to look up and out, only to perceive the Basingstoke Station sliding rapidly past the windows. Allingford's first impulse was to dash from the carriage, a dangerous experiment when one remembers the rapidity with which a light English train gets under way. In this, however, he was forestalled by Mrs. Scarsdale, who clung to his coat-tails, declaring that he should not desert her; so that by the time he was able to free himself the train had attained such speed as to preclude any longer the question of escape. The sensations which Mr. Allingford and Mrs. Scarsdale experienced when they realised that they were being borne swiftly away, the one from his wife and the other from her husband, may be better imagined than described. The deserted bride threw herself into the farthest corner of the carriage and began to laugh hysterically, while the Consul plunged his hands into his pockets and gave vent to a monosyllabic expletive, of which he meant every letter.

After the first moments of astonishment and stupefaction both somewhat recovered their senses, and mutual explanations and recriminations began forthwith.

"How has this dreadful thing happened?" demanded Mrs. Scarsdale, in a voice quavering with suppressed emotion.

"I'm afraid it's my fault," said Allingford ruefully. "The guard told me we had ten minutes."

"That was for your division of the train, stupid!" exclaimed the lady wrathfully.

"I didn't know that," explained the Consul, "and so I told your husband we had ten minutes, which probably accounts for his being left."

"Then I'll never, never forgive you," she cried, and burst into tears, murmuring between her sobs: "Poor, dear Harold! what will he do?"

"Do!" exclaimed the Consul, "I should think he had done enough, in all conscience. Why, confound him, he's gone off with my wife!"

"Don't you call my husband names!" sobbed Mrs. Scarsdale.

"Well, he certainly has enough of his own, that's a fact."

"If you were a man," retorted the disconsolate bride, "you would do something, instead of making stupid jokes about my poor Stanley. I'm a distressed American citizen – "

"No, you're not; you became a British subject when you married Scarsdale," corrected Allingford.

"Well, I won't be, so there! I tell you I'm an American woman in distress, and you are my Consul and you've got to help me."

"I'll help you with the greatest pleasure in the world. I'm quite as anxious to recover my wife as you can be to find your husband."

"Then what do you advise?" she asked.

"We are going somewhere at a rapid rate," he replied. "When we arrive, we will leave the train and return to Basingstoke as soon as possible. Now do you happen to know our next stop?"

"Yes: Salisbury."

"How long before we get there?"

"About three quarters of an hour."

"That will at least give us time," he said, "to consider what is best to be done. Have you a railway guide?"

"I think there is a South Western time-table in the pocket of dear Malcolm's coat," she said, indicating a garment on the seat beside her.

"Why don't you call him St. Hubart and be done with it?" queried Allingford, as he searched for and found the desired paper. "You've given him all his other names."

"I reserve that for important occasions," she replied; "it sounds so impressive."

Mabel Scarsdale, it will be noticed, was fast regaining her composure, now that a definite course of action had been determined upon. But she could not help feeling depressed, for it must be admitted that it is disheartening to lose your husband before you have been married a day. What would he do, she wondered, when he found that the train had gone? Had he discovered its departure soon enough to warn Mrs. Allingford to leave her carriage? and if not, where had she gone, and had he accompanied her? The event certainly afforded ample grounds for speculation; but her reverie was interrupted by the Consul, who had been deeply immersed in the time-table.

"There is no train back to Basingstoke before ten to-night," he said, "so we must spend the evening in Salisbury and telegraph them to await our return."

"Possibly my husband may have chased the train and caught the rear carriage. I have seen people do that," she ventured.

"The guard's van, you mean," he explained. "In that case he is travelling down with us and will put in an appearance directly we reach Salisbury, though I don't think it's likely. However, there's nothing to worry about, and I must beg you not to do so, unless you wish to make me more miserable than I already am for my share in this deplorable blunder."

"You don't think they would follow us to Salisbury?"

"No; that is" – and he plunged into the intricacies of the time-table once more – "they couldn't; besides, they would receive our telegram before they could leave Basingstoke."

"Could they have gone off on the other train?"

"Impossible," he replied. "By Jove, they neither of them know where they are bound for!"

"Quite true," she said, "they do not. We had tickets for Exeter; but as a joke I never let my husband see them."

"We were going to Bournemouth, and here are my tickets," he returned, holding them up, "but my wife doesn't know it."

"You think there is no question that they are waiting for us at Basingstoke?" she asked.

"Not a doubt of it; and so we have nothing to do but kill time till we can rejoin them, which won't be hard in your society," he replied.

"I'm sorry I can't be so polite," she returned, "but I want my husband, and if you talk to me much more I shall probably cry."

The Consul at this made a dive for an adjacent newspaper, in which he remained buried till the train slowed down for Salisbury.

"I suppose," he said apologetically, as they drew up at their destination, "that you won't object to my appropriating Scarsdale's coat and hat? I dare say he is sporting mine."

A tearful sniff was the only reply as he gathered up the various impedimenta with which the carriage was littered, and assisted his fair though doleful companion to alight. Returning a few moments later from the arduous duty of rescuing her luggage, which was, of course, labelled for Exeter, he found her still alone, there being no sign of Scarsdale in or out of the train, and no telegram for them from Basingstoke – a chance on which Allingford had counted considerably, though he had not thought it wise to mention it. Indeed, the fact that no inquiry had been made for them puzzled and worried him greatly, for it seemed almost certain that were their deserted partners still at Basingstoke, their first action would have been to telegraph to the fugitives. However, he put the best face he could on the matter, assured Mrs. Scarsdale that everything must be all right, and despatched his telegram back to their point of separation. Under the most favourable circumstances they could not receive an answer under half an hour, and with this information the Consul was forced to return to the disconsolate bride.

"There is no use in loafing around here," he said. "Suppose we go and see the cathedral? It will be something to do, and may distract our thoughts."

"I don't think mine could well be more distracted than they are now," replied she; "besides, we might miss the telegram."

"Oh, I'll fix that," he returned; "I'll have it sent up after us. Come, you had better go. You can't sit and look at that pea-green engine for thirty minutes; it is enough to give you a fit of the blues."