Poor Mr. Rule was as penitent as man could be. He was shocked beyond measure by his own brutality. He had forgotten himself—and before a lady! He made the most abject apologies.
"But my interest in the bank will, I hope, be some excuse. I feel half distracted," he said; and he added, as he backed out at the door with painful bows, "Perhaps, ma'am, if you can think of any means of communicating with Mr. Vernon, you would let me know; or I will call later, if we could send an express; nothing is too much for the chance of having him back to-morrow."
"Well," said the lady, "you are strange managers, I must say, that cannot get on without my husband one day."
"It is not that, ma'am; it is not that."
"I don't know what it is. I begin to think it is only making a fuss," Mrs. John said.