Part 33 (1/2)

”Oh, my dear, and me this figure!” cried the lady, and for the next ten minutes there was a hurried sound of dressing going on.

”Look sharp,” said Wilton. ”I'll go down and let them in. You'd better rouse up Cook and Samuel; they'll want something to eat.”

”I won't be two minutes, my dear. Take them in the library; the wood ashes will soon glow up again. My own darlings! I am glad.”

Mrs Wilton was less, for by the time the heavy bolts, lock, and bar had been undone, she was out of her room, and hurried to the bal.u.s.trade to look down into the hall, paying no heed to the cool puff of wind that rushed upward and nearly extinguished the candle her husband had set down upon the marble table.

”My own boy!” she sighed, as she saw Claud enter, and heard his words.

”Thankye,” he said. ”Gone to bed soon.”

”The usual time, my boy,” said Wilton, in very different tones to those he had used at their last meeting. ”But haven't you brought her?”

”Brought her?”

”Yes; where's Kate?”

”Fast asleep in bed by now, I suppose,” said the young man sulkily.

”Oh, but you should have brought her. Where have you come from?”

”Fast train down. London. Didn't suppose I was going to stop here, did you, to be kicked?”

”Don't say any more about that, my boy. It's all over now; but why didn't you bring her down?”

”Oh, Claud, my boy, you shouldn't have left her like that.”

”Brought her down--Kate--shouldn't have left,” said the young man, excitedly. ”Here, what do you both mean?”

”There, nonsense; what is the use of dissimulation now, my boy,” said Wilton. ”Of course we know, and--there--it's of no use to cry over spilt milk. We did not like it, and you shouldn't have both tried to throw dust in our eyes.”

”Look here, guv'nor, have you been to a dinner anywhere to-night?”

”Absurd, sir. Stop this fooling. Where did you leave Kate?”

”In bed and asleep, I suppose.”

”But--but where have you been, then?”

”London, I tell you. Shouldn't have been back now, only I couldn't find Harry Dasent. He's off somewhere, so I thought I'd better come back. I say, is she all right again?”

”I knew it! I knew it!” shrieked Mrs Wilton. ”I said it from the first. Oh, James, James!--The pond--the pond! She's gone--she's gone!”

”Who's gone?” stammered Claud, looking from father to mother, and back again.

”Kate, dear; drowned--drowned,” wailed Mrs Wilton.

”What!” shouted Claud.

”Look here, sir,” said his father, catching him by the arm in a tremendous grip, as he raised the candle to gaze searchingly in his son's face; ”let's have the truth at once. You're playing some game of your own to hide this--this escapade.”