“That heartless,—that ungrateful girl!”
“What of her?”
Mrs. Gentry answered by applying her handkerchief to her eyes very much as Mrs. Siddons used to do in Belvidera.
“Come, madam,” interrupted Ratcliff, “my time is precious. No damned nonsense, if you please. To the point. What has happened?”
Rudely shocked into directness by these words, Mrs. Gentry replied: “She has disappeared,—r-r-run away!”
“Damnation!” was Ratcliff’s concise and emphatic comment. He started up and paced the room. “This is a damned pretty return for my confidence, madam.”
“O, she’ll be come up with,—she’ll be come up with!” sobbed Mrs. Gentry.
“Come up with,—where?”
“In the next world, if not in this.”
“Pooh! When did she disappear?”