“Not to me, Father.”
“Have you no fantasy at all whither they went?”
“I took it, Sir, that my master went to the works, as he is wont of a Tuesday; and I thought Mistress Grena was a-visiting some friend. Touching Mistress Gertrude I can say nought.”
“She went not forth alone, surely?”
“She took Jack withal, Sir—none else.”
The conviction was slowly growing in Mr Bastian’s mind that the wave of that feathery tail had deprived him of the only means of communication which he was ever likely to have with Gertrude Roberts. “The sly minx!” he said to himself. Then aloud to Margery, “Do I take you rightly that all they departed yesterday, and have not yet returned?”
“That is sooth, Father.”
Margery stood holding the door, with a calm, stolid face, which looked as if an earthquake would neither astonish nor excite her. Mr Bastian took another arrow from his quiver, one which he generally found to do considerable execution.
“Woman,” he said sternly, “you know more than you have told me!”
“Father, with all reverence, I know no more than you.”