She tied her bonnet, fastened her mantle--having stood in them all the afternoon, momentarily expecting to be released, as he had called it--and was hastening through the window. Frederick laid a detaining hand upon her.
"Not yet, Georgina. I have come to stop your return to Castle Wafer."
"I thought you said you had come to release me!"
"I meant release you from suspense--to satisfy your curiosity, which has, I suppose, been on the rack. You are not to come back to Castle Wafer at all: we won't have you."
"You can let things alone," returned Georgina, throwing off her bonnet. "But I think you might have told me before now--keeping me with my things on all these hours!"
"I could not conveniently come before. Well, shall I relieve that curiosity of yours?"
Again she threw up her face petulantly. "That's just as you like. I don't care to hear it."
"You know you do care to hear it," he said. "But indeed, Georgina"--and his half-mocking, half-tender tone changed to seriousness--"it is a subject that I shrink from entering upon. Mrs. Carleton is ill. That is the reason we are banishing you for the present from Castle Wafer."
Georgina's mood changed also: the past one had been all make-believe, not real.
"Ill! I am so sorry. Is it anything infectious?"