Jones took up the light, unconscious figure in his arms and moved toward the door, but he muttered, deprecatingly:
"She'll die out there in the snow."
"What is that to you? Creatures like her ought to be dead! Do as you are bid, or you will rue it!" stormed his mistress; and Jones, dazed and frightened by her violence, hastened to obey her commands.
The door had hardly closed on him as he bore poor Kathleen out into the stormy night, when Alpine Belmont, disturbed by the noise, came gliding down the stairs, demanding the cause of the excitement.
Mrs. Carew was pale and trembling in every limb, and she answered, reluctantly:
"It's something not fit for a young girl's ears, my dear."
"Oh, bosh! I'll find out from the servants if you don't tell me," retorted Alpine; and then Mrs. Carew said, cunningly:
"Well, if you must know such awful things, a woman came here demanding to see that disreputable brother of yours! You can imagine the sort of woman, crazy with drink, that would follow him! So I made Jones put her out into the street, and the whole disgraceful thing will be talked over by the servants by to-morrow."
Alpine shivered with horror and disgust, and muttered:
"I wish Ivan was dead! He is too wicked to live! The idea of that woman's effrontery!"