She understood.
"Dudley!" she whispered. "Where is he? Why haven't you brought him in?"
"He is at the gate. Where is my father? I must speak to him first, or to mother."
Mrs. Wedmore herself, having been informed by Bartram of the arrival of her son, now came out of the breakfast-room to meet him. In a few words he informed her of the circumstances, adding, as he was bound to do, that there was a possibility that the police might come to make inquiries, if not to arrest Dudley. But Doreen, who insisted on hearing everything, overruled the faint objection which Mrs. Wedmore made, and determined to have him brought in before her father could learn anything about it.
Max, therefore, went down to bring the carriage up to the door, and Dudley, having been roused into a half-conscious condition, was assisted into the house and up to one of the spare bedrooms—Max on one side and Bartram on the other.
By this time Mr. Wedmore had, of course, become aware of what was going on; but it was now too late to interfere, even if he had wished to do so. When Dudley had been taken upstairs, Doreen met her brother as he came down.
"Who is the girl with the sweet face inside the carriage?"
Max stammered a little, and then said, by a happy inspiration:
"Oh, that's the nurse. You see—he was so ill—"
Doreen looked at him keenly, but did not wait for anymore explanations.