“Oh, you mean dear Mr Rosebury, do you?” said the doctor.
“Yes, Dr Bolter; oh, yes. Tell me; do you think that dreadful girl has deluded him away?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t,” cried the doctor, stoutly. “Hang it all, no! I’d give her the credit of a good deal, but not of that. Hang it, no.”
“Thank you, doctor,” said the lady hysterically. “Of course I should have forgiven it, and set it all down to her; but you do me good, doctor, by assuring me that my surmise is impossible. What do you think then?”
“That it’s all a mystery for us to find out, and I was going to hunt it up when you stopped me, ma’am.”
“Excuse me, Mrs Barlow,” said little Mrs Bolter, who had been fidgeting about, and waiting for an opportunity to speak, “but will you kindly explain what you mean by your very particular allusions to my brother?”
“Must I?” said the lady, with a martyred look.
“If you please, ma’am,” said Mrs Bolter, sternly; and the little lady looked as if she were ready to apply the moral thumbscrews and the rack itself to the visitor if she did not make a clean breast.
“Do you not know?” whispered Mrs Barlow, with a pathetic look, and a timidly bashful casting down of the eyes.
“No, ma’am, I do not,” said little Mrs Bolter, haughtily.