"Something is wrong," said Horace, "but I can't tell you what it is. I don't know what it is. Now, Milly, that is all I am going to say. You need not go on asking and asking, for you will only make me miserable. I can't tell you anything more."
"You can't tell me anything more?" She was struck, not dumb indeed with amazement, but into such a quiver and agitation that she could scarcely speak. Then she regained her courage a little. "Where's papa? He can't be ill, or you would not have come home."
"I have not seen him," said Horace, doggedly.
"You have not seen him?"
"Mother did, and then old Fareham. I can tell you this: it isn't speculation, or anything of that sort. The firm is all right. It's nothing about that."
"The firm—speculation!" cried Milly, with wild contempt; "who cares for business? What is the matter? and why doesn't he come home?"
"Who cares for it? I care for it. I thought at first that was what had happened; but we may make our minds quite easy—it's not that." Horace was really comforted by this certainty, though not perhaps so much as he pretended to be. "I was very much frightened at first," he said. "It was a great relief to find that, whatever it is, it is not that."
Milly stood looking at him with scared eyes. "Do you mean to say that papa is not coming home? Oh, Horry, for goodness' sake tell me something more. Has he done anything? What has he done? Papa! It is impossible, impossible!" the girl cried.
"So I should have said too," said Horace, who had now had a long time in which to accustom himself to the idea. "Perhaps the mother will tell you something; she has not said a word to me. I don't know, and therefore I can't tell you. It has been a horrid sort of day," said the lad, "and perhaps you'll think it unfeeling, Milly, but I'm hungry. I'd like to have something to eat, and then I'd like to go to bed. I'm horribly tired, too; wandering about, and always waiting to hear something and never hearing, and imagining all sorts of things, is very fatiguing, and I don't think I've eaten anything to-day."
Milly despised her brother for thinking of eating, but yet it was a relief to superintend his supper and get him all he wanted. They had a great deal of talk over this strange meal, and though Horace gave his sister no information, they yet managed to assure themselves somehow that a terrible catastrophe had happened, and that their father had gone out of their lives. Milly wept bitterly over it, and even Horace could not keep the tears from his eyes; but somehow they recognised the fact between them, far more easily than their mother above stairs or any bystander could have imagined possible. Two days ago what could have been more impossible to them? And Milly did not know even so much as Horace knew, nor had any insight at all into how it was; and yet she, too, in the course of an hour or so, had accepted the fact. To youth there is something convincing in certainty, an obedience to what is, which is one of the most remarkable thinks in life. They acknowledged the mystery with wonder and pain, but they did not rebel or doubt. Their mother thought nothing less than that they would struggle, would be incredulous, would rebel even against her for their father's sake. But there was nothing of all this. They submitted almost without a struggle, though they did not understand.