“‘Oh, it’s all right, sir, I don’t want paying,’ said the footman hastily. ‘It’s my belief she drove poor Miss Hendrick away with her temper. She’s a wunner,’ he continued in a whisper, ‘reg’lar tiger-cat, and the young ones is reg’lar tiger-kittens—beasts,’ he added, half savagely.
“‘Tell me when she went.’
“‘Well, sir, it was the night afore the night afore last as she went out, and didn’t come back. I’m going, too, and so’s two of the maids.’
“‘Did she take her box?’
“‘Lor’, no, sir, nothing at all; and when she didn’t come back, we down in the servants’ ’all said as she had been driven away, and gone home.’
“‘But,’ I said, and I felt the blood come into my face as I asked the question about my own child, ‘but did she go alone?’
“‘Oh, yes, I think so, sir.’
“‘And,’—I was choking as I asked the question—‘what gentlemen came to see her?’
“‘Gentlemen—to see her?’
“‘Yes; your master said so in his letter.’