"I'm going to fetch him," he said, and was gone before Betty's protest reached him.
"I do wish uncle wouldn't interfere," the girl said, as her aunt laughed at her husband's precipitate exit.
"Interfere, my dear!" she exclaimed. "You can't stop him. He's got a perverted notion that we women are incapable of taking care of ourselves. He goes through life determined to fight our battles. Determined to help us out when we don't need it. He's helped me 'out' all our married life. He spends his life doing it, and I often wish he'd—he'd leave me 'in' sometimes. I've never seen a man who could upset a woman's plans more completely than your uncle, and all with the best intention. One of these days I'll start to help him out, and then we'll see how he likes it," she laughed good-humoredly. "You know, if he finds Jim he's sure to upset the boy, and he'll come back thinking he's done his duty by you. Poor Tom, and he does mean so well."
"I know he does, auntie, and that's why we all love him so. Everybody loves him for it, He never thinks of himself. It's always others, and——"
"Yes, my dear, you're right. But all the same I think he's right just now. Why isn't Jim here? Why didn't he come straight away? Why has he been in Malkern five hours before he comes to see you? Betty, my child, I've not said a word all these years. I've left you to your own affairs because I know your good sense; but, in view of the stories that have reached us about Jim, I feel that the time has come for me to speak. Are you going to verify those stories?"
Mrs. Chepstow established her comfortable form in a basket chair, which audibly protested at the weight it was called upon to bear. She folded her hands in her lap, and, assuming her most judicial air, waited for the girl's answer. Betty was thinking of her meeting with Jim on the bridge.
"I shall hear what he has to say," she said decidedly, after a long pause.
Her aunt stared.
"You're going to let him tell you what he likes?" she cried in astonishment.
"He can tell me what he chooses, or—he need tell me nothing."