"Don't you see the names?"
"Names? Emmett?--Emmett? I seem to have heard the name before; now in what connection have I heard it?"
"It's the name of Dorothy's guardian. Harold, read that paragraph again, and then say if nothing about it strikes you as being of interest to you."
Mr Vernon did as he was told. On a second reading it dawned on him what his wife alluded to--dawned on him with a sense of shock.
"God bless my soul! You--you don't mean to say that you for one moment imagine that anything about this painful story refers to Miss Gilbert?--to our Miss Gilbert?--to Frances' Miss Gilbert?"
Before his wife could answer, there came rushing into the room, with that unceremonious haste with which some young men will rush into rooms, his son--excitement writ large all over him; and a paper--which was not The Times--in his hand.
"I say, mater!--and dad!--this is a jolly pretty state of things! Have you heard about it?--everybody else has!--it seems we're the only people who haven't! I don't know what Strathmoira's thinking about! I call it pretty thick!"
Agitation made his meaning less clear than he appeared to think.
"James," observed his father, "if you will cease bounding about the room as if you were possessed; and will not bawl; and will be a little less idiomatic, it is possible that your mother and I will get some idea of what it is you are talking about."
"But, dad, Dorothy Gilbert--Miss Gilbert's wanted for murder!"