"Thank you. I will come in."
He turned to his wife with a rapid question, under his breath. "Where is Roger?"
Elsie stared at him, her colour paling.
"Herbert!—it can't—it can't——"
"I suspect it is—Mrs. Barnes," said French slowly. "Help me on with my coat, darling. Now then, what shall we do?"
"She can't have come to force herself on him!" cried his wife passionately.
"Probably she knows nothing of his being here. Did he go for a walk?"
"Yes, towards Sandown. But he will be back directly."
A quick shade of expression crossed French's face, which his wife knew to mean that whenever Roger was out by himself there was cause for anxiety. But the familiar trouble was immediately swallowed up in the new and pressing one.
"What can that woman have come to say?" he asked, half of himself, half of his wife, as he walked slowly back to the house. Elsie had conveyed the children to their nurse, and was beside him.