‘Nonsense, Rose! How can you listen to such folly, Herbert?’
‘But that’s not all! I saw them again under the gas when I got out. I was very near trying to speak to her, but I lost sight of her in the throng; but I saw that face so like Master Michael, only scared and just ready to cry.’
‘You’ll run about telling that fine ghost-story,’ said Ida roughly.
‘But Louisa could not have been a ghost,’ said Rose, bewildered. ‘I thought she was his nursery-maid taking him somewhere! Didn’t she—’ then with a sudden flash—‘Oh!’
‘Turned off long ago for flirting with that scamp Rattler,’ said Herbert. ‘Now she has run off with him.’
‘There was a sailor-looking man with her,’ said Rose.
‘I never heard such intolerable nonsense!’ burst out Ida. ‘Mere absurdity!’
Herbert looked at her with surprise at the strange passion she exhibited. He asked—
‘Did you say the Hall girl had run away?’
‘Oh, never mind, Herbert!’ cried Ida, as if unable to command herself. ‘What is it to you what a nasty, horrid girl like that does?’