d in
trying not to wonder where her daughter might be. She beheld with a
distinct blenching of the spirit Sir Isaac advancing towards her. She
wondered more than ever where Ellen might be.

"Here!" cried her son-in-law. "Where's Ellen gone?"

Mrs. Sawbridge with an affected off-handedness was sure she hadn't the
faintest idea.

"Then you _ought_ to have," said Isaac. "She ought to be at home."

Mrs. Sawbridge's only reply was to bridle slightly.

"Where's she got to? Where's she gone? Haven't you any idea at all?"

"I was not favoured by Ellen's confidence," said Mrs. Sawbridge.

"But you _ought_ to know," cried Sir Isaac. "She's your daughter. Don't
you know anything of _either_ of your daughters. I suppose you don't
care where they are, either of them, or what mischief they're up to.
Here's a man--comes home early to his tea--and no wife! After hearing
all I've done at the club."

Mrs. Sawbridge stood up in order to be more dignified than a seated
position permitted.

"It is scarcely my business, Sir Isaac," she said, "to know of the
movements of your wife."

"Nor Georgina's apparently either. Good God! I'd have given a hundred
pounds that this shouldn't have happened!"

"If you must speak to me, Sir Isaac, will you please kindly refrain
from--from the deity----"

"Oh! shut it!" said Sir Isaac, blazing up to violent rudeness. "Why!
Don't you know, haven't you an idea? The infernal foolery! Those
tickets. She got those women----Look here, if you go walking away with
your nose in the air before I've done----Look here! Mrs. Sawbridge, you
listen to me----Georgina. I'm speaking of Georgina."

The lady was walking now swiftly and stiffly towards the house, her face
very pale and drawn, and Sir Isaac hurrying beside her in a white fury
of expostulation. "I tell you," he cried, "Georgina----"

There was something maddeningly incurious about her. He couldn't
understand why she didn't even pause to hear what Georgina had done and
what he had to say about it. A person so wrapped up in her personal and
private dignity makes a man want to throw stones. Perhaps she knew of
Georgina's misdeeds. Perhaps she sympathized....

A sense of the house windows checked his pursuit of her ear. "Then go,"
he said to her retreating back. "_Go!_ I don't care if you go for good.
I don't care if you go altogether. If _you_ hadn't had the upbringing of
these two girls----"

She was manifestly out of earshot and in full yet almos