Miss Bencomb was leaving the hotel for the railway, which was quite near at hand, and had only recently been opened, as if on purpose for this event. At Jocelyn's suggestion she wrote a message to inform her father that she had gone to her aunt's, with a view to allaying anxiety and deterring pursuit. They walked together to the platform and bade each other good-bye; each obtained a ticket independently, and Jocelyn got his luggage from the cloak-room.
On the platform they encountered each other again, and there was a light in their glances at each other which said, as by a flash- telegraph: 'We are bound for the same town, why not enter the same compartment?'
They did.
She took a corner seat, with her back to the engine; he sat opposite.
The guard looked in, thought they were lovers, and did not show other travellers into that compartment. They talked on strictly ordinary matters; what she thought he did not know, but at every stopping station he dreaded intrusion. Before they were halfway to London the event he had just begun to realize was a patent fact. The Beloved was again embodied; she filled every fibre and curve of this woman's form.
Drawing near the great London station was like drawing near Doomsday.
How should he leave her in the turmoil of a crowded city street? She seemed quite unprepared for the rattle of the scene. He asked her where her aunt lived.
'Bayswater,' said Miss Bencomb.
He called a cab, and proposed that she should share it till they arrived at her aunt's, whose residence lay not much out of the way to his own. Try as he would he could not ascertain if she understood his feelings, but she assented to his offer and entered the vehicle.
'We are old friends,' he said, as they drove onward.
'Indeed, we are,' she answered, without smiling.
'But hereditarily we are mortal enemies, dear Juliet.'
'Yes--What did you say?'
'I said Juliet.'
She laughed in a half-proud way, and murmured: 'Your father is my father's enemy, and my father is mine. Yes, it is so.' And then their eyes caught each other's glance. 'My queenly darling!' he burst out;'instead of going to your aunt's, will you come and marry me?'
A flush covered her over, which seemed akin to a flush of rage. It was not exactly that, but she was excited. She did not answer, and he feared he had mortally offended her dignity. Perhaps she had only made use of him as a convenient aid to her intentions. However, he went on--'Your father would not be able to reclaim you then! After all, this is not so precipitate as it seems. You know all about me, my history, my prospects. I know all about you. Our families have been neighbours on that isle for hundreds of years, though you are now such a London product.'
'Will you ever be a Royal Academician?' she asked musingly, her excitement having calmed down.
'I hope to be--I WILL be, if you will be my wife.'
His companion looked at him long.
'Think what a short way out of your difficulty this would be,' he continued. 'No bother about aunts, no fetching home by an angry father.'
It seemed to decide her. She yielded to his embrace.
