“They are saying that Captain Levison has taken away my mamma.”
Joyce fell back in her chair with a scream. It changed to a long, low moan of anguish.
“What has he taken her for—to kill her? I thought it was only kidnappers who took people.”
“Child, child, go to bed.”
“Oh, Joyce, I want mamma. When will she come back?”
Joyce hid her face in her hands to conceal its emotion from the motherless child. And just then Miss Carlyle entered on tiptoe, and humbly sat down on a low chair, her green face—green that night—in its grief, its remorse, and its horror, looking nearly as dark as her stockings.
She broke into a subdued wail.
“God be merciful to this dishonored house!”
Mr. Justice Hare turned into the gate between twelve and one—turned in with a jaunty air; for the justice was in spirits, he having won nine sixpences, and his friend’s tap of ale having been unusually good. When he reached his bedroom, he told Mrs. Hare of a chaise and four which had gone tearing past at a furious pace as he was closing the gate, coming from the direction of East Lynne. He wondered where it could be going at that midnight hour, and whom it contained.