The nurse took him privately aside, and hinted that her mistress's sadness during the past few days had been such that she feared she had gone out to drown herself.

Marchmill reflected.

Upon the whole he thought that she had not done that.

Without saying whither he was bound he also started off, telling them not to sit up for him.

He drove to the railway-station, and took a ticket for Solentsea.
It was dark when he reached the place, though he had come by a fast train, and he knew that if his wife had preceded him thither it could only have been by a slower train, arriving not a great while before his own.