‘Angry with you, my dear? Don’t get any foolish notions like that into your head. If you sold your things to pay your debt, it was an honest thing to do, and we’d be the last, father and I, to blame you for it. And we’ve got enough money in the stocking to buy you more. So set your mind at rest about that, my girl, and now go to sleep and wake bright to-morrow.’ She kissed her daughter as she spoke, and went back to the parlour to rejoin her husband. But the first words the farmer uttered fanned the little breath of suspicion which she had entertained about Nell’s sudden coming home into a flame. ‘Well, how is she?’ demanded Llewellyn, as his wife entered the parlour. ‘Oh, well enough, Griffith,’ she replied; ‘very tired, as you may have seen, and a bit inclined to be hysterical, but that’ll all wear off by to-morrow.’ ‘I hope it may,’ said the farmer; ‘but I don’t quite understand why she came home without giving us the least warning. It seems queer now, don’t it? Here was the girl in a first-class place, drawing big wages, as Hetty said she must from the lavish way in which she spent money whilst they were in town, and without word or warning she chucks it all up and rushes home to us.’ ‘Well, father, you wouldn’t be the one to blame her for that, surely?’ ‘Not I, if she’d done it in a decent way. Haven’t I asked her a dozen times since she left us to come home if she felt inclined? But big situations ain’t thrown up in that way, Mary. Servants have to give a month’s notice before they leave. Has she left Lord Ilfracombe’s service before he has got someone to fill her place? There’s something I don’t understand about it all, and I wish Nell had come back in a more regular manner. Where’s her boxes and things? Has she left them in London, or brought them with her? And if so, why didn’t she bring them on in Johnson’s fly, or ask me to send Bob with the cart to fetch them?’ At this query Mrs Llewellyn almost began to cry. ‘Oh, Griffith, my man, you mustn’t be hard on the lass, but she hasn’t got anything with her. No box, nor nothing--only the clothes she stands upright in. She has just told me so.’ ‘What, from a situation like Lord Ilfracombe’s!’ exclaimed the farmer. ‘What has she done with them then? There’s some mystery about all this that I don’t like, Mary, and I mean to get to the bottom of it.’ ‘There’s no mystery, Griffith, only a misfortune. Nell has told me all about it. I think she must have spent more than she could afford--perhaps on her sister when she was in London--any way our Nell got in debt, and sold her things to pay it. It was very unfortunate, but it was honourable, you see. And she is but a girl after all. We mustn’t judge her too hardly. She didn’t know how much she owed perhaps, or she thought she’d make it up from her wages, and then this marriage took place, and she left and found herself in a fix. It seems very plain to me.’