CHAPTER XVII.
"HE NEVER KNEW!" Ronnie saw Dick off by the mid-day train.
After the train had begun to move, Dick leaned from the window, and said suddenly: "Ronnie! talk to your wife about her Leipzig letter, and--_the kid_, you know." Ronnie kept pace with the train long enough to say: "I wish you wouldn't call it the 'kid,' Dick; it is the 'Infant.' And Helen declines to talk of it." Then he dropped behind, and Dick flung himself into a corner of his compartment, with a face of comic despair.

"Merciful heavens," he said, "slay that Infant!" Meanwhile Ronnie was saying to a porter: "When is the next train for town ?" "One fifty-five, sir." "Then I have no chance now of catching the three o'clock from town, for Hollymead ?" "Not from town, sir.

But there is a way, by changing twice, which gets you across country, and you pick up the three o'clock all right at Huntingford, four ten." "Are you sure, my man?
I was told there was no way across country." "The one fifty-five is the only train in the day by which you can do it, sir.

I happen to know, because I have a sister lives at Hollymead, so I've done it m'self.

If trains aren't late, you hit off the three o'clock at Huntingford." "Thanks," said Ronnie, noting down particulars.