'But Owen told me, seriously, that she refused to have anything to say to him, and begged me to be kind to her when he was gone away, for his sake.'
'Nothing but a trap to take you in—the deceitful young puppies—the—the—'
'Go and look about the horses and I'll make breakfast.'
He went accordingly. All the horses were safe. Nothing was missing anywhere but Lion.
'I 'ouldn't take twenty pounds for that dog,' said Mr Prothero when he returned to the house, and sat down to breakfast.
'Hadn't we better send to look for them?' asked Mrs Prothero timidly.
'I'll see 'em hanged first. What! go and make another hullabaloo all through the country, as if one wasn't enough in one house. No, not I. Let 'em go to sea, or where they will; but don't tell anybody anything about 'em. Let people think what they will; I only wish I was at the world's end. But it's all your fault. Do you remember that morning when you bothered me into letting the girl stay? Fine things have come of it, seure enough.'
'But we don't know that they're together.'
'But we do, I say, Mrs Prothero; or why should they go off together? Fine things, indeed, for the gossips! Two 'lopements from one house. The young hussy.'
Mrs Prothero could not help crying. To lose them both at once—a son and one who had been better than a daughter to her—it was too sad—and to feel so uncertain as to what would become of them!