"We were not even aware that your father was unwell; we had received positively no information on the subject whatever."
"Positively none whatever!"
"It seems to me--to us--a most extraordinary thing that you should not have apprised us of the condition of your father's health; that you should have given us no intimation of any kind; that you should have kept us in utter ignorance."
"In utter ignorance!"
"May I ask, may we ask, Miss Lindsay, why you have not treated us with at least some approximation to that consideration which our position obviously demanded?"
"Our position obviously demanded!"
"To begin with, it was all very sudden; and then I didn't know where you were.
"But you might have made inquiries, anybody would have told you; almost, one might say, the first person you met in the street. We are not the kind of people who hide ourselves in holes."
"No, not in holes!"
"The moment we learnt what had occurred--learnt, as I have observed, by the sheerest accident,--we rushed back to Holtye, that very moment; though to do so involved us in the most serious inconvenience; but we had no option."