False Colours Read Online Free PDF

place of his in Yorkshire it is very understandable that Evelyn shouldn’t have returned yet.’ She paused, considering the matter, and then shook her head. ‘No. Evelyn didn’t go to Yorkshire. He spent one night at Ravenhurst, just as he told me he would; and then he drove to Brighton. That I do know, for his groom accompanied him; but whether he found Silverdale there or not I can’t tell, because, naturally, Challow doesn’t know. But he returned to Ravenhurst the same day, and stayed the night there. I thought he would do that—in fact, I thought he must have stayed for several days, for he told me that he had matters to attend to at home, and might be absent from London for perhaps as much as a sennight. But he left Ravenhurst the very next morning, and under the most peculiar circumstances!’
    ‘In what way peculiar, Mama?’
    ‘He took only his night-bag with him, and he sent Challow back to London with the rest of his gear, saying that he had no need of him.’
    ‘Oh!’ said Kit. His tone was thoughtful, but not astonished. ‘Did he tell Challow where he was going?’
    ‘No, and that is another circumstance which makes me very uneasy.’
    ‘It need not,’ he said, amusement flickering in his eyes. ‘Did he send his valet back to London too? I take it that Fimber is still with him?’
    ‘Yes, and that is another thing that cuts up my peace! He wouldn’t take Fimber to Sussex: he said there was no room for him in the phaeton, which is true, of course, though it set up all Fimber’s bristles. I must own that I wished he might have found room for him., because I know Fimber will never let him come to harm. Challow is very good too, but not—not as firm! It is the greatest comfort to know that they are both with Evelyn when he goes off on one of his starts.’
    ‘I’m sure it is, Mama,’ he said gravely.
    ‘But that’s just it!’ she pointed out. ‘ Neither is with him! Kit, it’s no laughing matter! I’m persuaded that some accident has befallen him, or that he’s in some dreadful scrape! How can you laugh?’
    ‘I couldn’t, if I thought it was true. Now, come out of the dismals, Mama! I never knew you to be such a goose! What do you imagine could have happened to Evelyn?’.
    ‘You don’t think—you don’t think that he did see Silverdale, and quarrelled with him, and—and went off alone that day to meet him?’
    ‘Taking his night-bag with him in place of a second! Good God, no! You have put yourself into the hips, love! If I know Evelyn, he’s gone off on a private affair which he don’t want you to know anything about! You would, if he had taken Fimber or Challow with him, and he’s well aware of that. They may be a comfort to you, my dear, but they’re often a curst embarrassment to him! As for accidents—fudge! You’d have been apprised of anything of that nature: depend upon it, he didn’t set out to visit Silverdale without his card-case!’
    ‘No, very true!’ she agreed. ‘I never thought of that!’ Her spirits revived momentarily, only to sink again. Her beautiful eyes clouded; she said: ‘But at such a moment, Kit! When so much hinges upon his presenting himself in Mount Street tomorrow! Oh, no, he could not have gone off on one of his adventures!’
    ‘Couldn’t he’?’ said Kit. ‘I wonder! I wish you will tell me a little more about this engagement of his, Mama. You’ve said that there has been no time for him to tell me about it himself, but that’s doing it very much too brown, my dear! There might have been no time for a letter to have reached me, telling me that he had come to the point of offering for this girl; but he never mentioned her name to me in the last letter I had from him, far less the possibility that he would shortly be married; and that, you know, is so unlike him that if anyone but you had broken this news to me I should have thought it a Banbury story. Now, I know of only one reason which would make Evelyn withhold his