“Aunt Hermione!”—Arminell stood still. “I don’t want to go to her. Why should I go? I do not like her, and she detests me.”
“My dear, I wish it.”
“What? That I should see the Academy? I can take a day ticket, run up, race through Burlington House, and come home the same evening.”
“No, my dear, I wish you to stay a couple of months at least, with Hermione.”
“I see—you want to put me off, out of the way of the tutor, so as to have no more talk, no more confidences with him. That is my lady’s scheme. It is too late, papa, do you understand me? It is too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I say. This is locking the door after the horse is stolen. Send me away! It will not alter matters one scrap. As I said before, the precautions have come too late.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
“FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.”
Suddenly, in the midst of his breakfast, Lord Lamerton uttered an exclamation and turned purple, and thrust his chair from the table.
Lady Lamerton sprang from her seat. Arminell was alarmed. She had not seen her father in this condition before; was he threatened with apoplexy?