"So they have! so they have!" said Madam Conway, wringing her hands in her despair, and crying out that a Conway should be so disgraced. "What shall I do? What shall I do?"
"Make the best of it, of course," answered Maggie. "I don't see that George is any worse for his parentage. He is evidently greatly respected in Worcester, where his family are undoubtedly known. He is educated and refined, if they are not. Theo loves him, and that is sufficient, unless I add that he has money."
"But not as much as I supposed," moaned Madam Conway. "Theo told me two hundred thousand dollars; but that woman said one. Oh, what will become of me! Give me the hartshorn, Maggie. I feel so faint!"
The hartshorn was handed her, but it could not quiet her distress. Her family pride was sorely wounded, and had Theo been dead she would hardly have felt worse than she did.
"How will she bear it when it comes to her knowledge, as it necessarily must? It will kill her, I know!" she exclaimed, after Maggie had exhausted all her powers of reasoning in vain; then, as she remembered the woman's avowed intention of visiting her daughter-in-law on the morrow, she felt that she must turn back; she must see Theo and break it to her gently, or the first sight of that odious creature, claiming her for a daughter, might be of incalculable injury.
"Stop, Mike," she was about to say; but ere the words passed her lips she reflected that to take Maggie back to Worcester was to throw her again in Henry Warner's way, and this she could not do. There was but one alternative. She could stop at the Charlton depot, not far distant, and wait for the downward train, while Mike drove Maggie home; and this she resolved to do. Mike was accordingly bidden to take her at once to the depot, which he did, while she explained to Maggie her reason for returning.
"Theo is much better alone, and George will not thank you for interfering," said Maggie, not at all pleased with her grandmother's proceedings.
But the old lady was determined. It was her duty, she said, to stand by Theo in trouble; and if a visit from that horrid creature wasn't trouble, she could not well define it.
"When will you come home?" asked Maggie.
"Not before to-morrow night. Now I have undertaken the matter, I intend to see it through," said Madam Conway, referring to the expected visit of Mrs. Douglas, senior.