“What man?”
“The man who may break off your marriage if he meets with the Captain. Has Herbert Linley been here?”
“Certainly not. The one person associated with my troubles whom I have seen to-day is Sydney Westerfield.”
Mrs. Presty bounced out of her chair. “You—have seen—Sydney Westerfield?” she repeated with emphatic pauses which expressed amazement tempered by unbelief.
“Yes; I have seen her.”
“Where?”
“In the garden.”
“And spoken to her?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Presty raised her eyes to the ceiling. Whether she expected our old friend “the recording angel” to take down the questions and answers that had just passed, or whether she was only waiting to see the hotel that held her daughter collapse under a sense of moral responsibility, it is not possible to decide. After an awful pause, the old lady remembered that she had something more to say—and said it.