"Not Jill?" said McTaggart quickly. He stared at his friend's changed face, the brown eyes deeply shadowed, strong jawbone prominent.
"Yes." Bethune dragged up a chair and sat down, facing the other across the narrow dining table, with a certain studied deliberation.
"It's like this. I'll tell you quickly. It's this damnable Suffrage business and Mrs. Uniacke again—just when we thought it all over! ... It seems there's to be a political meeting in Wales to-morrow—some big guns airing their views on Home Rule—and the Suffragettes mean mischief. The leaders are already there. They burned down a house last night—by way of endearing themselves to the natives!—and to-morrow they mean to gather in force and upset all the speech-making. Mrs. Uniacke planned to go—secretly," his face darkened—"without telling Jill a word—but Roddy got it out of Stephen. I think that woman's really mad!—She's hardly out of bed, you know, and Jill was nearly worried to death—begged and implored her to give it up."
"I never heard such damned nonsense!" McTaggart broke out at this—"she ought to be put in an asylum. No wonder Jill never wrote..."
Bethune gave him an odd glance.
"It was only found out yesterday. But that's not the worst of it. Jill's gone in her place."
"What?" McTaggart sprang to his feet.
"Sit down," said Bethune grimly. "You've got another couple of hours." He glanced up at the clock. "I went there this afternoon—to enquire for Mrs. Uniacke. Lucky I did!—I found Roddy and he poured out the whole story. It seems that Jill, to save her mother, offered at last to go instead. She's only to yell 'Votes for Women'—or some such infernal nonsense. But think of her in that mob—already savage about the fire. Welsh miners—you know what they are?"
"Good Lord!" McTaggart looked stunned. "And you mean her mother let her go?—a child like that..."
"She's hardly a child." Bethune took him up sharply. "I suppose she thought it would force her to join—become a suffragette herself. Anyhow it's a dirty trick."