"I know the one you mean," Bates said briefly. "She's not here and she'll not be here again! She's been dismissed!"
"What?" said Wilkins.
Bates looked him over sternly, as if to suggest that if he happened to be a friend of Felice he had passed beneath contempt.
"She's went!" Bates said sourly. "This here house is no place for young Frenchies that wanders the streets at night, believe me. She sneaked in—I dunno what hour this early morning, and she was able to give no account at all of where she'd been. There wasn't no further questions asked; she went, bag and baggage!"
One of those mental clouds which had been troubling Anthony since last night came now to engulf the complacent Wilkins. He looked at Bates, as if refusing to believe a word of it. He looked at the trunk and his expression was a study.
"Well, as to where this young person has gone," Wilkins said. "You see, this trunk being, as it were, her personal property, I've been asked to see that she gets it herself and——"
"Where she's gone is no concern of ours. We don't know and we don't want to know!" said Mr. Bates. "The hussy went without a character and that's all we can tell you about her. And this here house is too full of trouble for me to be bothering with you about her trunk," concluded Mr. Bates. "Anything belonging to her gets out!"
"Out!" Wilkins muttered.
"Out!" said Mr. Bates, and pointed at the door.