In a few minutes the cab was at the door, and Rosie officiously helped
the girl in, handed her the bag, and told her to pay the cabman one
shilling. After it started she rushed excitedly into the road and stopped
it.

"Oh, I forgot, Miss Fan, leave the telegram, you don't want it any more,"
she said, coming to the side of the cab.

Fan mechanically pulled the yellow envelope from her pocket and gave it
to her without question, and was then driven off. But in her agitation at
the sudden summons she had thrust the missive and the cover separately
into her pocket, so that Rosie had after all only got the envelope. It
was a little matter--a small oversight caused by hurry--but the result
was important; in all probability Fan's whole after life would have been
different if she had not made that trivial mistake.

She was quickly at the station, and after taking her ticket had only a
few minutes to wait for a train; half an hour later she was at Twickenham
Station. As soon as the platform was clear of the other passengers who
had alighted, a respectably-dressed woman got up from one of the seats
and came up to Fan. "You are Miss Affleck," she said, with a furtive
glance at the girl's face. "Miss Starbrow sent me to meet you. She is
going to stay a few days with friends just outside of Twickenham. Will
you please come this way?"

She took the bag from Fan, then led the way not to, but round the
village, and at some distance beyond it into a road with trees planted in
it and occasional garden-seats. They followed this road for about a
quarter of a mile, then left it, and the villas and houses near it, and