"Where is my daughter Grace?"
"Your daughter Grace! My niece Grace! Why, at home in her father's house, to be sure! Worth, are your wits wandering?"
"When did Grace leave you?"
"At three o'clock, yesterday. How can you ask, when you sent in such hot haste for her? You might be quite sure that she would not linger. I thought it rather—let me tell you——"
"I never sent for Grace. I have not seen her!"
Mrs. Fermitage looked at her brother steadily, with one hand fencing her forehead. She knew that he was of no drunken kind—yet once in a way a man might take too much—especially in such weather. But he answered her gaze with such eyes that she came up to him, and began to tremble.
"I tell you, Joan, I never sent for Grace. If you don't know where she is—none but God knows!"
"I have told you all," his sister answered, catching her breath at every word almost—"a letter came from you, overruling the whole of our arrangement—you were not ill; but you wanted her for some particular purpose. She was to walk, and you would meet her; and walk she did, poor darling! And I was so hurt that I would not send——"
"You let her go, Joan! You let her go! It was a piece of your proud temper. Her death lies at your door. And so will mine!"
Mr. Oglander was very sorry, as soon as he had spoken thus unjustly; but the deep pang of the heart devoured any qualms of conscience.