"Well, Mrs. Lloyd says Fanny knew it yesterday morning. I never thought about it till I was half way home, and then it seemed a rum go to me that Fan should know before anything had happened."
Mrs. Brown looked at Jack in silence for a moment, while she took the key of the door from her pocket; then she said, in a changed tone—
"Jack, we must keep this to ourselves, if Fanny isn't indoors. I am still to keep your father very quiet, the doctor says, and it will never do to upset him about Fanny just now. And he will be cross if he hears that she has had leave to come home, and not come."
"But where could she go?" asked Jack. "She doesn't know anybody out there, does she?"
"She may have made friends!" said his mother. "But mind, your father must not know this just now."
Almost at the same moment Selina opened the door.
"We heard you talking," she announced, "and father said I might come and see who it was. Haven't you been, Jack?" she asked.
"Been? Been where, Miss Inquisitive?" asked her brother.
"Why, to see Fanny, of course. You said you should meet her as she was going to church."
"Well, I missed her," said Jack.