"Oh, no, miss, the master didn't go out. At least not that I know of. Mr. Lablache didn't call exactly. I think he just came straight to the office. I shouldn't have known he was there, only I was passing the door and heard his voice—and the master's."
"Oh, that will do—just wait a moment, though. Say, is Silas around? Just find him and send him right along. Tell him to come to the veranda."
The servant departed, and Jacky sat down at a writing-table and wrote a note to "Lord" Bill. The note was brief but direct in its tone.
"Can you see me this afternoon? Shall be in after tea."
That was all she put, and added her strong, bold signature to it. Silas came to the window and she gave him the note with instructions to deliver it into the hands of the Hon. Bunning-Ford.
The letter dispatched she felt easier in her mind.
What had Lablache been closeted with her uncle for? This was the question which puzzled—nay, alarmed her. She had seen her uncle early on the previous evening, and he had seemed happy enough. She wished now, when she had returned from visiting Mrs. Abbot, that she had thought to see if her uncle was in. It had become such a custom for him lately to be out all the evening that she had long ceased her childhood's custom of saying "Good-night" to him before retiring to bed. One thing was certain, she felt her uncle's strange behavior this morning was in some way due to Lablache's visit. She meant to find out what that visit meant.
To this end several plans occurred to her, but in each case were abandoned as unsuitable.
"No," she murmured at last, "I guess I'll tax him with it. He'll tell me. If Lablache means war, well—I've a notion he'll get a hustling he don't consider."
Then she left the sitting-room that she might set about her day's work. She would see her uncle at dinner-time.