"You again want to imply, sister," said Captain Acton with a darkling face, "that my daughter has eloped with the man she rejected."
"Rejected, but she has a hankering for him still," said the old lady with one of those smiles of knowingness which make the lineaments ghastly when bitter sorrow and tragic trouble are the topics talked about.
Captain Acton left the room to refresh himself with a change of apparel, and returned after a brief absence. He was a man of considerable but not powerful self-control. He entered the room with a face that indicated a certain resolution of mind, and said to his sister: "I have been thinking, perhaps, that we have been unnecessarily flurried and somewhat hurried in our conjecture and efforts. I believe I have done well in giving all possible publicity to the fact that Lucy left her home this morning and has not returned. But when I come to reflect that even now it is not twelve hours since she started on her early walk, I consider that she has not been long enough absent to cause us the bitter anxiety we have felt and are feeling. Suppose after visiting the person from whom she received the letter, she breakfasted with a friend on the other side of Old Harbour Town. This friend may have induced her to stop to dinner; a drive might follow. There are hundreds of things in this business which when explained would seem perfectly reasonable, so that at any moment she may turn up and tell us the story of her day's outing, and wonder that we should be so troubled because of an absence that she makes perfectly comprehensible. I shall hold to this view," he continued firmly, "until the night is advanced. If she does not return to-night then we must take further steps to-morrow."
"What steps?" asked his sister. "What steps have not been taken that remain to be taken?"
He had suddenly sunk in reflection and did not answer her.
"I should be uneasy in my mind in any case," said Miss Acton. "But that odious steward of the Minorca being in the business together with the unwarrantable sailing of the vessel hours before her time, fills me with dread and terror, and I cannot, brother, listen to what you say about her breakfasting and dining with a friend and going for a drive, and so forth. She would guess at our suspense and anxiety. Is our Lucy a girl to cause unnecessary pain and unhappiness, not indeed to those who love her as we do, but to the humblest creature in the world?"
Just then the door was opened, and the footman announced "Admiral Sir William Lawrence."
The old gentleman entered, not with his familiar deep-sea rolling gait, but slowly and wearily, and with an air of dejection. Lucy's dog welcomed him by barking and rushing at his shoe and trying to bite through it. Miss Acton rose and sank in a curtsy which is to be seen in these days only on the stage, but her kindly heart quickened her gaze for anything that invited sympathy, and she immediately said: "Sir William, you are quite worn out. You need refreshment. Pray sit, pray sit! What will you take?"
"We will have some brandy and seltzer water," said Captain Acton, pulling the bell, knowing this drink to be as great a favourite with the Admiral as hock and soda water was with Lord Byron.
"I am sorry to say," said the Admiral, sinking into a chair, "that I have brought no news."