Get the dog-cart ready after the carriage has gone."
The groom nodded in comprehension, and Esther went back to the house and
to her own room. She ought at that time of day to have been eating her
dinner with the rest of the upper servants, but she had work to do which
was of much more importance than the consumption of food and drink.
There was going to be a flight that afternoon--but it would not be Pratt
who would undertake it. Esther Mawson had carefully calculated all her
chances as soon as Pratt told her that he was going to be away for a
while. She knew that Pratt would not have left Barford for any
indefinite period unless something had gone seriously wrong. But she
knew more--by inference and intuition. If Pratt was going away--rather,
since he was going away, he would have on his person things of
value--documents, money. She meant to gain possession of everything that
he had; she meant to have a brief interview with Mrs. Mallathorpe; then
she meant to drive to Scaleby--and to leave that part of the country
just as thoroughly and completely as Pratt had meant to leave it. And
now in her own room she was completing her preparations. There was
little to do. She knew that if her venture came off successfully, she
could easily afford to leave her personal possessions behind her, and
that she would be all the more free and unrestricted in her movements if
she departed without as much as a change of clothes and linen.
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