“The truth is, Stott, I couldn't bear to have her return now. I couldn't look my own daughter in the face.”
A sound as of a great sob which he had been unable to control cut short his speech. His eyes filled with tears and he began to smoke furiously as if ashamed of this display of emotion. Stott, blowing his nose with suspicious vigor, replied soothingly:
“You mustn't talk like that. Everything will come out all right, of course. But I think you are wrong not to have told your daughter. Her place is here at your side. She ought to be told even if only in justice to her. If you don't tell her someone else will, or, what's worse, she'll hear of it through the newspapers.”
“Ah, I never thought of that!” exclaimed the judge, visibly perturbed at the suggestion about the newspapers.
“Don't you agree with me?” demanded Stott, appealing to Mrs. Rossmore, who emerged from the house at that instant. “Don't you think your daughter should be informed of what has happened?”
“Most assuredly I do,” answered Mrs. Rossmore determinedly. “The judge wouldn't hear of it, but I took the law into my own hands. I've cabled for her.”
“You cabled for Shirley?” cried the judge incredulously. He was so unaccustomed to seeing his ailing, vacillating wife do anything on her own initiative and responsibility that it seemed impossible. “You cabled for Shirley?” he repeated.
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Rossmore triumphantly and secretly pleased that for once in her life she had asserted herself. “I cabled yesterday. I simply couldn't bear it alone any longer.”
“What did you say?” inquired the judge apprehensively.
“I just told her to come home at once. To-morrow; we ought to get an answer.”