“Yes, yes, old gentleman,” said Tom. “Mamma really is ill now, and won’t interfere, and if it gives you a few twinges of the gout, hang it all, it will be a counter irritant.”
This was after Lady Barmouth had been assisted off to bed.
“Hold up, my little lassie,” Tom said, pressing Tryphie’s hand. “Hang me if you aren’t the only one left with a head upon your shoulders. You must help me all you can.”
“I will, Tom,” she said, returning the pressure; and he felt that any one else’s pretensions from that moment were cast to the winds.
“One moment,” whispered Tom, as Lady Barmouth was moaning on the stairs, half-way up the first flight of which she was seated, with her head resting on Justine’s shoulder. “You think there’s no mistake—Maude has bolted?”
“Yes, I have been to her room, and she has taken her little Russia bag.”
“But you don’t believe this absurd nonsense that they have got hold of?”
“I can’t, Tom,” she said; “but she has been very strange in her ways for some time past.”
“Enough to make her,” said Tom. “The old lady would drive me mad if she had her own way with me. There, be off and get her upstairs to bed while I see what’s to be done.”
Tryphie went up, and Tom entered the dining-room, developing an amount of firmness and authority that startled the butler into a state of abnormal activity.