Awful!
I knocked on the door of Iolanthe's room.
No answer. Knocked again. Everything quiet. So I went in.
And what did I see?
My mother-in-law sitting on the edge of the bed and my wife kneeling beside her dressed already in her black travelling gown, her head in her mother's lap, and both women crying. It was enough to move a stone to pity.
Oh, gentlemen, how I felt!
I should have liked to rush to my carriage, call "To the station" to the coachman, and take the first train out of the place--to America, or any place where embezzling cashiers and prodigal sons go to and disappear.
But that wouldn't do.
"Iolanthe," I said humbly and contritely.
Both the women screamed. My wife clasped her mother's knees, while the mother put protecting arms around her.