and forced her gently back into a chair. The telegram was brief, as telegrams are wont to be, even when infinite joy and sorrow are compressed into them. "Lord Onslow seriously ill," it said. "Advise Lady Onslow to come at once."
"Oh, why," was Fenella's first thought, "had she not gone sooner? Why had she allowed herself to take it for granted that the winds and the waves were the cause of the long delay? Might not her heart have told her that some stronger power than those was holding her husband back? Had she even once taken the trouble to verify for herself the list of the arrivals and departures on the Guernsey boats. What selfishness, what apathy, what indifference, alas! she had been guilty of." These were the self-upbraidings that pursued her all the time she was making her hurried and eager preparations for departure. Jacynth had essayed, in his usual calm and kindly fashion, to reassure her against her worst fears, but he could not enter into the subtler causes of her remorse. Ronny, in morbid terror of being taken to sea again, behaved, nevertheless, like a man, when Jacynth showed him that it was his duty to take care of his mother. That very night he, Fenella, and the child, who were so used by this time to passing for Monsieur, Madame, et Bébé that they almost felt like the personages they simulated, left Liverpool for London.
