"I'll tell you just as shortly as I can exactly what it means. And, perhaps, when I have told you you won't ask any more questions than you can conveniently help, because--I've had just about as much to bear as I can manage. Rodney Elmore--I'm not going to call him Mr. Elmore, I've as much right to call him Rodney as anybody in this world; he's got himself into a mess, and I'm one of them. Why, he promised to marry me to-day at twelve o'clock."
"He--promised! Young woman!"
"Here's the licence to prove it; but--I suppose he daren't face it; so he's gone, and he's done me, and I'm not the only one he's done. Has he done your daughter?"
"Your question, put in such a form, I entirely decline to answer."
"You needn't; I know. And, mind you, I don't believe he's gone alone either, wherever it is he has gone to. What's the name of that girl down at Brighton that he was so thick with, and your son's sweetheart?"
Mr. Austin started as if something had stung him. He stared at the girl with growing apprehension.
"You can't mean----?"
"Yes, I can. Wasn't her first name Mary? I have heard the other--it's a queer one--and I forget it. But you ask your son, if he cares for the girl, to make inquiries, and if she's missing, and he wants her new address, to find out Rodney Elmore's, and--he'll find hers."