They accordingly repaired to the luncheon-bar, and were soon discussing whiskies and sodas.

"Tell me," said the Consul, as he put down his gla.s.s, "have you discovered your destination yet?"

"Haven't the remotest idea," returned the other. "Mrs. Scarsdale insisted on buying the tickets, and watches over them jealously. If it had not been for the look of the thing, I would have bribed the guard to tell me where I was going. By the way, won't you shake hands with my wife? She is just forward."

"With pleasure," replied Allingford, "if you will return the compliment; my carriage is the first of its cla.s.s at the rear of the train. We have still six minutes." With which the two husbands separated, each to seek the other's wife.

Scarsdale met with a cordial welcome from Mrs. Allingford, and was soon seated by her side chatting merrily.

"We should sympathise with each other," she said, laughing, "for I understand that we are both in ignorance of our destination."

"Indeed we should," he replied. "I dare say that at this moment your husband and my wife are gloating over their superior knowledge."

"Oh, well," she continued, "our time will come; and now tell me how you have endured the vicissitudes of the day."

"I think you and I have no cause for complaint," rejoined Scarsdale.

"You see we understand our conventions; but I fear that our respective partners have not had such an easy time."

"I shouldn't think it would have worried Mrs. Scarsdale," returned the Englishwoman.

"Of course it didn't," said that lady's husband; "nothing ever worries her. But I think signing the register puzzled her a bit; she said it made her feel as if she was at an hotel."

"Robert enjoyed it thoroughly," said Mrs. Allingford.

"Had he no criticisms to offer?"

"None, except that one seemed to get a good deal more for one's money than in the States."

"The almighty dollar!" said Scarsdale, laughing, and added, as he looked at his watch: "I must be off, or your husband will be turning me out; our ten minutes are almost up."

Once on the platform, he paused aghast. The forward half of the train had disappeared, and an engine was backing up in its place to couple on to the second part. Allingford was nowhere in sight.

"Where is the rest of the train?" cried Scarsdale, seizing an astonished guard.

"The forward division, sir?"

"Yes! yes! For Heaven's sake speak, man! Where is it?"

"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, _nee_ 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."