"He has just come in," returned Missy, looking furtively at her—"and has gone to bed."
"Why didn't he come in to me?" asked Mrs. Varian, anxiously.
"Because I thought that it—it was so late—you ought not to be kept awake so long."
"Did you tell him not to come?"
"Well, yes."
Mrs. Varian sighed. "It would have been better not," she said.
Missy turned her face to the fire, which was beginning to blaze, and stretched out her hands to it. "Well, mamma," she said a little querulously, after several moments of silence, "I suppose you don't think that I care anything about St. John's trouble. I should think you might tell me without being asked to."
"O my child!" exclaimed her mother. "Forgive me. I have been so absorbed in him."
"O, I know that," retorted Missy, crying a little. "That isn't what I want to know."
"It won't take long to tell you. The girl to whom he was engaged, has fled from him and from her mother, and last night was married privately to a man for whom, it seems, she has long had a passion."