from home," said Sir Lucius.

"According to your aunt----" said Lord Torrington.

"She's not my aunt," said Frank.

"Oh, isn't she?" Lord Torrington's tone suggested that this was a
distinct advantage to Frank. "According to Miss Lentaigne then, the girl
has asserted her right to live her own life untrammelled by the fetters
of conventionality. That's the way she put it, isn't it, Lentaigne?"

"Lady Isabel," said Sir Lucius, "came over to Ireland. We know that."

"Booked her luggage in advance from Euston," said Lord Torrington,
"under another name. I had a detective on the job, and he worried that
out. Women are all going mad nowadays; though I had no notion Isabel
went in for--well, the kind of thing your sister talks, Lentaigne. I
thought she was religious. She used to be perpetually going to church,
evensong on the Vigil of St. Euphrosyne, and that kind of thing, but
I am told lots of parsons now have taken up these advanced ideas about
women. It may have been in church she heard them."

"From Dublin," said Sir Lucius, "she came on here. The police
sergeant----"

"Who's a dunderheaded fool," said Lord Torrington.

"He says there's a young lady going about the bay for the last two days
in a boat."

"That's the wrong tack altogether," said Lord Torrington. "Isabel would
never think of going in a boat. I tell you she can't row."

"Now, Frank," said Sir Lucius, "did you see or hear anything of her?"

Frank would have liked very much to deny that he had seen any lady. His
dislike of Lord Torrington was strong in him. He had been snubbed in
the train, injured while leaving the steamer, and actually insulted
that very afternoon. He felt, besides, the strongest sympathy with any
daughter who ran away from a home ruled by Lord and Lady Torrington. But
he had been asked a straight question and it was not in him to tell a
lie deliberately.

"We did meet a lady," he said, "in fact we lunched with her today, but
her name was Rutherford."

"Was she rowing about alone in a boat?" said Lord Torrington.

"She had a boy to row her," said Frank. "She'd hired the boat. She said
she came from the British Museum and was collecting sponges."

"Sponges!" said Sir Lucius. "How could she collect sponges here, and
what does the British Museum want sponges for?"

"They weren't exactly sponges," said Frank, "they were zoophytes."

"It's just possible," said Lord Torrington, "that she might--Sponges, you
say? I don't know wh