"I have thought," said he, "of a meeting of journalists in London, to whom we could tell everything viva voce, since that, I think, would be more in order."
"For Heaven's sake, Aubrey," I exclaimed, "let us get this thing off our backs now, and be done with it!"
"But I have thought," said he, "that if we retard the news even a day or two that might be a great thing for the Church as against the Education Bill." (He disliked the bill for some reason—called it "smart.")
"But what have we to do with the fate of the Education Bill?" said I, for what I wanted was to see his sister's face: "surely we can't gyve and entangle ourselves with such side-motives now! See, here is the boy waiting to take the telegrams; pray let us send them."
"Is that your deliberate judgment?" he asked.
"It is, yes," said I.
"Then," said he, "I submit to it: send the telegrams."
But he said it just too late, and the telegrams were never sent, for at that moment a letter-carrier came into the porch with a telegram for us which I saw shake in Langler's hand as he read it; it came from Paris, bore no signature, and was in the words: "If you send any telegrams you sacrifice Miss Langler."
We ought now to have decided upon our action in one minute, but were two hours in the dining-room, where we went to discuss it. "What we have to do," I said from the first, "is to send instantly a telegram to Emily ordering her to fly and hide herself, as she did before, till we come; then send the two telegrams to Percival and Bentley, just as we intended."
"Ah, it would shock her, such a telegram," said Langler.