“Nothing of the sort,” cried Mrs. Dirom once more. Her tone was angry, but it was full of alarm. She turned her back on the others and looked at Effie with eyes that were full of anguish, of secrecy and confidence, warning her, entreating her, yet defying. “How should he be here when he has so much to do elsewhere?” she cried. “The child has got that, with the other nonsense, into her head.” Then with a sudden change of tone, “I will take her to my room to be quiet, and you can order the brougham to take her home.” CHAPTER XXIII. “She was sent home in the brougham, that disturbed all our sleep just dashing along the road at the dead of night. They were in a terrible state before that. The minister, too, was here, looking like a ghost to hear if we knew anything; and how could we say we knew anything, seeing she had parted from here in the afternoon not over well pleased with Beenie and me. And Mrs. Ogilvie--she is not a woman I am fond of, and how far I think she’s to blame, I would just rather not say--but I will say this, that I was sorry for her that night. She came, too, with a shawl over her head, just out of herself. She had got the old man off to his bed, never letting on that Effie was out of the house; and she was in a terror for him waking, and the girl not there.” “No fear of him waking; he is just an old doited person,” said Miss Beenie, with indignation. “Not so old as either you or me. But let alone till I’ve told my story. And then, Ronald, my man, you’ve heard what’s followed. Not only a failure, but worse and worse; and the father fled the country. They say he had the assurance to come down here to get some papers that were laid up in his wife’s jewel press, and that Effie saw him. But he got clean away; and it’s a fraudulent bankruptcy--or if there’s anything worse than a fraudulent bankruptcy, it’s that. Oh, yes, there has been a great deal of agitation, and it is perhaps just as well that you were out of the way. I cannot tell whether I feel for the family or not. There is no look about them as if they thought shame. They’re just about the same as ever, at kirk and at market, with their horses and carriages. They tell me it takes a long time to wind up an establishment like that--and why should they not take the good of their carriages and their horses as long as they have them? But I’m perhaps a very old-fashioned woman. I would not have kept them, not a day. I would never have ridden the one nor driven about in the other, with my father a hunted swindler, and my family’s honour all gone to ruin--never, never! I would rather have died.” “Sarah, that is just what you will do, if you work yourself up like this. Will ye not remember what the doctor says?” “Oh, go away with your doctors. I’m an old-fashioned woman, but I’m a woman of strong feelings; I just cannot endure it! and to think that Effie, my poor little Effie, will still throw in her lot with them, and will not be persuaded against it!”