Lydia had plenty to occupy her days. The house in Curzon Street had been bought and she had been a round of furnishers, paper-hangers and fitters of all variety.
The trip to the Riviera came at the right moment. She could leave Mrs. Morgan in charge and come back to her new home, which was to be ready in two months.
Amongst other things, the problem of the watchful Mr. Jaggs would be settled automatically.
She spoke to him that night when he came.
"By the way, Mr. Jaggs, I am going to the South of France next week."
"A pretty place by all accounts," volunteered Mr. Jaggs.
"A lovely place--by all accounts," repeated Lydia with a smile. "And you're going to have a holiday, Mr. Jaggs. By the way, what am I to pay you?"
"The gentleman pays me, miss," said Mr. Jaggs with a sniff. "The lawyer gentleman."
"Well, he must continue paying you whilst I am away," said the girl. "I am very grateful to you and I want to give you a little present before I go. Is there anything you would like, Mr. Jaggs?"
Mr. Jaggs rubbed his beard, scratched his head and thought he would like a pipe.
"Though bless you, miss, I don't want any present."
"You shall have the best pipe I can buy," said the girl. "It seems very inadequate."
"I'd rather have a briar, miss," said old Jaggs mistakenly.
He was on duty until the morning she left, and although she rose early he had gone. She was disappointed, for she had not given him the handsome case of pipes she had bought, and she wanted to thank him. She felt she had acted rather meanly towards him. She owed her life to him twice.
"Didn't you see him go?" she asked Mrs. Morgan.
"No, miss," the stout housekeeper shook her head. "I was up at six and he'd gone then, but he'd left his chair in the passage--I've got an idea that's where he slept, miss, if he slept at all."
"Poor old man," said the girl gently. "I haven't been very kind to him, have I? And I do owe him such a lot."
"Maybe he'll turn up again," said Mrs. Morgan hopefully. She had the mother feeling for the old, which is one of the beauties of her class, and she regretted Lydia's absence probably as much because it would entail the disappearance of old Jaggs as for the loss of her mistress. But old Jaggs did not turn up. Lydia hoped to see him at the station, hovering on the outskirts of the crowd in his furtive way, but she was disappointed.