“Oh, that she ran away from you, and that was why you quarrelled with the man.”
“And what did you think?”
“I said it was nonsense. People always think that a little lively woman who talks fast and has playful ways must be a perfect fool, but I told them Nouna had quite sense enough to know that she had a good husband, and that if she had already left off loving you it was because you had beaten her—which I did not believe.”
“Ella, you’re a—a—brick.”
“That is to say I’m a hard little thing made for use, and not for ornament. I see,” said she quite saucily. “Well, now tell me what has become of her.”
“I—don’t—know,” said George slowly, with such laboured utterance that Ella grew instantly very serious, guessing the gravity of his fears. “If you—if you could find her—”
Suddenly he gave way, and, dropping on to a chair, hid his face in his hands. There was a little pause, during which Ella stood so motionless that he might have fancied himself alone; then he felt her hands on his head, not with a hesitating timid touch, but with the firm pressure of fingers that seemed to act as conductors of the human strength and kindliness that lay in her own heart.
“Tell me all you fancy, or all you fear, George. I wormed everything out of my poor uncle Horace last night, so you may speak to me quite freely. Do you think she has gone back to her mother?”
The mere mention of this suggestion in a matter-of-fact tone, without any affectation of shrinking, or horror, conveyed a vague sense of comfort. It implied that this was the most likely course to have been taken, and also the most to be desired. He looked up and fixed his eyes on hers with the hopeful confidence of a child towards the stranger who lets it out of the dark cupboard where it has been shut up for punishment.
“She was taken away by a trick, just before I was arrested. The man who did it was a wretch who has been in the pay of—of her mother, and who was in love with her himself. Ella, can you understand?”