ormation, she was at her desk writing out telegrams cancelling all
her engagements. Iron-souled as this woman was, her fingers trembled as
she wrote. She had a vision of Eustace and the daughter of J. Rufus
Bennett strolling together on moonlit decks, leaning over rails damp
with sea-spray and, in short, generally starting the whole trouble all
over again.

In the height of the tourist season it is not always possible for one
who wishes to leave America to spring on to the next boat. A long
morning's telephoning to the offices of the Cunard and the White Star
brought Mrs. Hignett the depressing information that it would be a full
week before she could sail for England. That meant that the inflammable
Eustace would have over two weeks to conduct an uninterrupted wooing,
and Mrs. Hignett's heart sank, till suddenly she remembered that so poor
a sailor as her son was not likely to have had leisure for any strolling
on the deck during the voyage on the "Atlantic."

Having realised this, she became calmer and went about her preparations
for departure with an easier mind. The danger was still great, but there
was a good chance that she might be in time to intervene. She wound up
her affairs in New York, and on the following Wednesday, boarded the
"Nuronia" bound for Southampton.

The "Nuronia" is one of the slowest of the Cunard boats. It was built at
a time when delirious crowds used to swoon on the dock if an ocean liner
broke the record by getting across in nine days. It rolled over to
Cherbourg, dallied at that picturesque port for some hours, then
sauntered across the Channel and strolled into Southampton Water in the
evening of the day on which Samuel Marlowe had sat in the lane plotting
with Webster, the valet. At almost the exact moment when Sam, sidling
through the windows of the drawing-room, slid into the cupboard behind
the piano, Mrs. Hignett was standing at the Customs barrier telling the
officials that she had nothing to declare.

Mrs. Hignett was a general who believed in forced marches. A lesser
woman might have taken the boat-train to London and proceeded to Windles
at her ease on the following afternoon. Mrs. Hignett was made of sterner
stuff. Having fortified herself with a late dinner, she hired a car and
set out on the cross-country journey. It was only when the car, a
genuine antique, had broken down three times in the first ten miles,
that she directed the driver to take her instead to the "Blue Boa