Maimie’s eyes gave a startled flash. “I don’t know,” she said. “He promised to write and tell you. He could not give me his address beforehand. I think he was going first to New York.”
“And you have travelled alone all the way from Canada?”
“Father saw me off. He put me in charge of the captain. And one of the passengers, Mr. Bowen, promised to see me to London. He had to go to Canterbury; but he put me into my cab, and I thought I was all right then.”
“How did your father know we were still living in the same house?” asked my husband. “Suppose you had found strangers here, Maimie,—what would you have done?”
There was another startled flash of the black eyes. “I don’t know. I never thought of such a thing. Father seemed so sure.”
Silence followed, and Jack said,—“Mother!” entreatingly.
I felt hard, and by no means inclined to respond. “It is an extraordinary tale altogether,” I said.
Maimie looked even paler than on first coming in. Her eyes travelled wistfully all round, and then she again pushed the wavy hair from her brow, with a faint sigh.
“I am so tired,” she said. “I wish I might sit down.”
Jack was bringing a chair instantly, and I saw him place her in it, with a look of kind and gentle encouragement. He had taken one of her little hands into his own as he did this, and the hand was kept by him. A smothered sob broke from Maimie, and Jack bent to one side, and exchanged a whisper with Owen. “Doesn’t Maimie want something to eat, mother?” asked Cherry.