'No, and I thought it better not to try. Agnes' return home has excited him dreadfully, and he fancies that it is his duty to watch over her--to protect her from my friends.' 'Then I suppose we shall never get rid of him. He'll be here all day, night and day. Good Heavens!' 'I don't say that. I hope that this new idea of his is only a freak. He will soon tire of his task of censor of morals. Meanwhile, we are to be most guarded in our conversation. And as for you----' 'What has he got against me?' and Lord Chadwick looked at Mrs. Lahens. 'About me!' he repeated, 'Nonsense.' 'I don't mean that he's jealous, but he thinks that we should not continue to see one another.' 'Does he give any reason?' 'Agnes is coming home to-day. I shall have to take her into society. He says that society will not stand it, unless our relations are broken off.' 'Society has stood it for the last seven years; society will stand anything except the Divorce Court, and there's no danger of that.' 'The Major's very queer. I don't know what's the matter with him; I never saw him go on as he did this morning. He says that the girl shall not be sacrificed if he can help it.' 'You don't think he'll make a row, do you?' 'Are you afraid?' 'Of what? For your sake I shouldn't like a row. Afraid of a madman like that! But he can do nothing. I don't see what he can do.' 'That's what he said himself. He says he can do nothing--you should have seen him walking up and down the room, dressed in a suit of clothes out of a rag shop, yellow-grey things two sizes too big for him; he has to roll up the ends of the trousers. He had no collar on, and to keep his neck warm he had tied an old pink scarf round his throat. He couldn't walk either way above a couple of yards, for the roof slants down almost to the floor; he knocked his head against the roof, but he did not mind, he went on talking, half to me, half to himself.' 'He sent for you, then?' 'Yes; that he'd like to see me upstairs. I told my maid to say that he was to come down to my room, but she brought back word that the Major couldn't come down, would I go up to him. So I had to go up to his garret. You never saw such a place. At last I got tired of listening to him--I couldn't stand there in the cold any longer--I was catching cold.' 'But you haven't told me what he said.' 'The usual thing: that it was the loss of his money that had brought him where he was; that if he only had a little money, if he could only keep himself, he would take his daughter away to live with him. He didn't know what would become of her in this house. Oh, he did go on. At last he burst into tears, he threw himself at my feet and said he'd forgive me everything if I'd only think of my daughter.' 'What did you say?' 'I said the best way to consider his daughter's interests, was by avoiding all scandal and wearing proper clothes.' 'And he promised he would wear the new suit?'