The very next day I again broached the subject of foreign travel to my mother. It was already obvious that the frost would not last for ever. Once the snow melted, once the crushed mass that had been a baronet was discovered, circumstantial evidence would point to Philippa. True, there was no one save myself who could positively _swear_ that Philippa had killed Sir Runan. Again, though I could positively swear it, my knowledge was only an inference of my own. Philippa herself had completely forgotten the circumstance. But the suspicions of the Bearded Woman and of the White Groom were sure to be aroused, and the Soudan I resolved to seek without an hour’s delay.
‘You certainly don’t look well, Basil. But why the Soudan?’
‘A whim, a sick man’s fancy. Perhaps because it is not so very remote from Old Calabar, the country of Philippa’s own father. Mother, tell me, how do you like her?’
‘She is the woman you love, and however shady her antecedents, however peculiar her style of conversation, she is, she must be, blameless. To say more, after so short an acquaintance, might savour of haste and exaggeration.’
‘Then you _will_ come to the Soudan with us to-morrow?’
‘No, my child, further south than Spain I will _not_ go, not this journey!’
‘Well, what’s the next news, old man?’ she said.
‘Rain, rain, Go to Spain, Be sure you don’t come back again.’
sang sweet Philippa, in childish high spirits.
Alas, Philippa’s nursery charm against the rain proved worse than unavailing.
That afternoon, after several months of brave black frost, which had gripped the land in its stern clasp, the rain began to fall heavily.
The white veil of snow gradually withdrew.
All that night I dreamed of the white snow slowly vanishing from the white hat.
Next morning the snow had vanished, and the white hat must have been obvious to the wayfaring man though a fool.
Next morning, and the next, and the next, found me still in London.
Oh, the awful torture of having a gay mother shopping the solemn hours away, when each instant drew her son nearer to the doom of an accessory after the fact!
My mother did not object to travel, but she _did_ like to have her little comforts about her.
Ten thousand pots of Dundee marmalade. And such other articles as she deemed essential to her comfort and safety during the expedition. In vain I urged that our motto was _Rescue and Retire_, and that such elaborate preparations might prevent our retiring from our native shore, and therefore make rescue exceedingly problematical.