"Mistress! Great heavens! Why will you persist in such a life?"
"My dear Lord de Burgh, don't you know that it is not always easy to judge or to act for another?
"Which means I am to mind my own business?"
"You have a very unvarnished style of stating facts."
"I know I have." A short pause, and he began again. "Where are those boys now?
"At Sandbourne. But, alas! I am going to take them away to-morrow. They are going to a school at Wandsworth."
"Going down to Sandbourne to-morrow? Is Miss Payne going with you?"
"Oh no; I don't need any one."
"Nonsense! you can't go about alone. I'll meet you at the station and escort you there."
Katherine laughed. "I am afraid that would never do. You have increased in importance and I have diminished, till the distance between our respective stations has widened far too much to permit of familiar intercourse, or—"