‘Home, papa? I dare not. I don’t know what he won’t do, when he finds where I’ve been, and he’s sure to get it out of me. Oh, don’t send me back!’ and she burst into a fresh fit of hysterical weeping.
‘Hush, hush, my girl!’ he said soothingly. ‘Nonsense! A married woman oughtn’t to be away from her husband. I’m going to write him a letter for you to give him, and you’ll find he won’t be so angry as you think. I suppose you’ll see him to-night?’
‘Yes. He said he should be home to-night, and he generally is when he says so.’
‘That’s well,’ said the auctioneer; and sitting down, he wrote a few lines:
‘Sir—I should like a word with you on family matters, and will call on you at eleven o’clock to-morrow.—Yours faithfully,
R. Cross.’
‘There!’ he said; ‘you give him that, and it will quiet him down. Now, get on your bonnet, and I’ll send for a cab.’
Captain Ferrard did come home, and in a very queer temper. Before he could proceed to vent it, his trembling wife put the note into his hand; and with a sharp glance at her, he opened and read it. ‘O ho!’ cried he. ‘So,’ he said, after musing a little, ‘you have been to see papa, eh? Singing your husband’s praises so well, that our good papa is anxious to make his acquaintance.—Is that it, Mrs Ferrard?’
She did not answer, but cast down her eyes.
He reflected again. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘I don’t much care what you have been saying, or what you have not. Perhaps it may turn out to be the best thing you could have done. Anyway, I’ll see him to-morrow—“comes he in peace, or comes he in war”—and on his behaviour, my pet, will depend our future happiness.—Now, get to bed!’