In the little dining-room at Shingle End Miss Bostal and Nell were sitting by the fire, the latter still absorbed in thoughts of Clifford, while the former tried to divert her companion’s gloomy reverie by gossip about the doings of the vicar’s wife and the high price of vegetables.
Miss Bostal looked anxiously from time to time into the coal-scuttle, divided between a wish to be economical with the fuel, on the one hand, and to have a good fire ready for her father’s return on the other.
“How late he is to-night!” she presently exclaimed, with an astonished glance at the clock.
It was nearly ten o’clock, and the colonel, who spent most of the day, on all week-days, either at his club at Stroan or at the golf-links, was in the habit of returning home punctually at nine.
Nell looked up with a start.
“Why, child, how scared you look! What is the matter?”
And Miss Bostal took up the tongs, and picking out from the grate the little bits of cinder which had fallen from the fire, she arranged them judiciously on the top to prevent a wasteful blaze.
“Do I?” said Nell, trying to smile, but shivering as she did so. “Well, I think I have had enough to scare me to-day, haven’t I?”
“Oh, my dear, I shouldn’t worry myself too much if I were you. It was a very terrible thing, and I felt bound to scold you at the time for bringing this young man down here at all. But it will be a lesson to you to be careful, and I have no doubt that both the young men will have time to think the matter over, and will make up their minds to control their passions better in future.”
“But Clifford—Mr. King! I am afraid he is seriously hurt!” whimpered Nell, with the tears, at last released, running down her cheeks.