Half a
mo': I'll read it to you ..."
But if Karslake translated Victor's message, as edited by the hand of
Nogam, it was to a wire as deaf as it was dumb.
XXI
VENTRE A TERRE
With exceeding care to avoid noise, Sofia unlocked the door and for the
second time since midnight let herself stealthily out into the darkened
corridor; but now with the difference that she did what she did in full
command of all her wits and faculties, with no subjective war of wills to
hinder and confuse her, and with a definite object clearly visioned--a goal
no less distant than the railway station.
Lanyard had promised that Karslake should come for her within an hour or
two and take her away with him, back to London and the arms of the father
whom, although so recently revealed and accepted, she had already begun to
love; if indeed it were not true that she had in filial sense fallen in
love with Lanyard at first sight, through intuition, that afternoon in the
Cafe des Exiles so long, so very long ago!
Well: she might as well await Karslake at the station. It would be simpler,
she would be more at ease there, would breathe more freely once she turned
her back on Frampton Court and all its hateful associations. Where Victor
was, she could not rest.
If she had feared the man before, now she hated him; but hatred had added
to her fear instead of replacing it, she remained afraid, desperately
afraid, so that even the thought of continuing under the same roof with him
was enough to make her prefer to tramp unknown roads alone in the mirk of
that storm-swept night.
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