I called to Alice, and she came out to me from our little drawing room.
"Where is father?" I cried, breathlessly. "He is not upstairs!"
She drew me into the room. Her round face was very sober, and her eyes were grave.
"He left for London a quarter of an hour ago," she declared, impressively.
"Left for London!" I repeated, bewildered. "Why, he was scarcely well enough to stand. Did he dress himself?"
"He was very weak, but he seemed perfectly well able to take care of himself," she answered. "A telegram came for him about half an hour ago. I took it up to his room, and he opened and read it without remark. He asked where you were, but I could only tell him that you were out. Directly afterwards I heard him getting up, and I went to the door of his room to see if I could help him. He told me that I was to order the dog cart, and that he was going away. I was too surprised to say a word."
My first impulse was unmistakable. It was a sense of great relief. Then I began to wonder what this Berdenstein girl would think. Would she connect it with her presence here? Would she think that he had gone away to avoid her? There was that risk, but it was no greater than the risk of her coming here some day and meeting him face to face. On the whole it was good news. It was a respite at any rate.
In the morning came a letter from him, dated simply London. He had been called away, he said, on some business, the details of which would not interest us, but it was a call which it would not have been his duty to have neglected. Immediately he had concluded it, he went on to say, he proposed to take a short vacation by the sea somewhere. Accordingly he had engaged a _locum tenens_, who was now on his way down, and he would write us again as soon as he had definitely decided where to go.
Alice and I laid down the letter with varying thoughts. To her, ignorant of any reasons for conduct which was on the face of it somewhat eccentric, it brought some concern. With me it was different. I was at once relieved and glad. I had arrived at that acutely nervous and overwrought state when even a respite is welcome. The explanations between us were for the present necessarily postponed, and, at any rate, I could meet Olive Berdenstein now without trembling. It was the truth which I had to tell. My father was not here. I did not know where he was. She could come and search for him.