f a social disaster has the power to excite. Nobody
thought of Margaret, or that she had any part to play in the matter, All
eyes were on Jenny; it could not be many days before news came! There
had hardly been more excitement over the flight itself.

Besides all the gossipers and watchers, there was one man who
acted--according to his lights, whether they were right or wrong. I have
hinted that Alison took a view of his office and its responsibilities
which was at least fully adequate--and seemed to a good many people more
than that. He was not content to stand by and see what he thought wrong
done without a protest. It was nothing to him that he might be told to
mind his own business: he would very confidently challenge your
definition of his business and your idea of its limits; he would be very
sure what his orders were and where they came from. Moreover he had seen
the affair from the other side. He was intimate at Fillingford Manor.

He wrote to Jenny asking if he might call on her; he wanted to have a
few words with her on a matter of importance relating to herself. He
added that he was acting entirely on his own responsibility and in no
way at the suggestion of any other person.

Jenny twisted his letter in her hands with an air of irresolution,
almost of shrinking.

"I don't want to see him," she said to me plaintively. "It won't
be--comfortable. He's let me severely alone up to now. Can't he let me
alone still? I suppose he'll lecture me horribly! If there were anything
to be got by it! But there isn't."

"He sent you a pleasant message about Margaret," I reminded her.

"Yes, so he did. And I don't want him to think me afraid. I'll see him.
But I'm afraid of him. Austin, you must be there."

"I don't think he'll expect that."

"Never mind what he expects. If I see him, it's on my own conditions. I
want you there. It's cowardly, but I do. Tell him he can come, but that
I propose to see him in your presence."

So she would have it, being obviously disturbed at the idea of the
interview. Was he coming to her as Nathan came to David--to denounce her
sin? He was no doubt wrong about her intentions for the future, but he
was fatally right in his opinion about what she had done in the past. He
had a _locus standi_, too, or so he would conceive--a professional right
to tell her the truth.

"I'm spoiled. I haven't had half enough of the disagreeables," she said
with a woeful smile.

There was truth in that