As for Rawson-Clew, he returned to England; there was nothing to keep him longer in Holland. But as he was still not sure how Julia's "capital arrangement" was going to be worked out, and was determined to bear his share of the burden, he decided to go to Marbridge on an early opportunity.
The opportunity did not occur quite so soon as he expected; several things intervened, so that he had been home more than a week before he was able to fulfil his intention. Marbridge lies in the west country, some considerable distance from London; Rawson-Clew did not reach it till the afternoon, at an hour devoted by the Polkingtons most exclusively to things social. It is to be feared, however, that he did not consider the Polkingtons collectively at all; it was Julia, and Julia alone, of whom he was thinking when he knocked at the door of No. 27 East Street.
The door was opened by a different sort of servant from the one who had opened it to him the last time he came; rather a smart-looking girl she was, with her answers quite ready.
"Miss Julia Polkington was not at home," she said, and, in answer to his inquiry when she was expected, informed him that she did not know.
"There is no talk of her coming home, sir," she said; "she is abroad, I think; she has been gone some time."
The girl did not know. "In the spring, I think, sir," she said; "she has not been here all the summer."
Then, it seemed, his first suspicion was correct; Julia had not gone home; for some reason or another she was not able to return.
He was not; there was no one at home now; but Mrs. Polkington would be in in about an hour. The maid added the last, feeling sure her mistress would be sorry to let such a visitor slip.
But Rawson-Clew did not want to see Mrs. Polkington; she, he was nearly sure, represented the aspiring side of the family, not the one to whom Julia would turn in straits. The improved look of the house and the servant suggested that the family was hard at work aspiring just now, and so less likely than ever to be ready to welcome the girl, or anxious to give true news of her if they had any to give. Captain Polkington, who no one could connect with the ascent of the social ladder, might possibly know something; at all events, there was a better chance of it, and he certainly could very easily be made to tell anything he did know.