Clare was little talked of. Adrian attributed the employment of the telegraph to John Todhunter's uxorious distress at a toothache, or possibly the first symptoms of an heir to his house.
"That child's mind has disease in it… She is not sound," said the baronet.
On the door-step of the hotel, when they returned, stood Mrs. Berry. Her wish to speak a few words with the baronet reverentially communicated, she was ushered upstairs into his room.
Mrs. Berry compressed her person in the chair she was beckoned to occupy.
"Well' ma'am, you have something to say," observed the baronet, for she seemed loth to commence.
"Wishin' I hadn't—" Mrs. Berry took him up, and mindful of the good rule to begin at the beginning, pursued: "I dare say, Sir Austin, you don't remember me, and I little thought when last we parted our meeting 'd be like this. Twenty year don't go over one without showin' it, no more than twenty ox. It's a might o' time,—twenty year! Leastways not quite twenty, it ain't."
"Round figures are best," Adrian remarked.
"In them round figures a be-loved son have growed up, and got himself married!" said Mrs. Berry, diving straight into the case.
Sir Austin then learnt that he had before him the culprit who had assisted his son in that venture. It was a stretch of his patience to hear himself addressed on a family matter; but he was naturally courteous.
"He came to my house, Sir Austin, a stranger! If twenty year alters us as have knowed each other on the earth, how must they alter they that we parted with just come from heaven! And a heavenly babe he were! so sweet! so strong! so fat!"