‘Did Jasper see the manager?’ Mr. Jordan’s voice was hollow. His hands, which he held deprecatingly before him, quivered. He had his elbows on the arms of his chair. ‘Oh, yes, of course he did. Don’t you understand? He went with Eve whilst I finished the crab. It was really a shame; they neither of them half cleaned out their claws, they were in such a hurry. “Preciosa” was not amiss, but I preferred crab. One can get plays better elsewhere, but crab nowhere of superior quality.’ Mr. Jordan began to pick at the horse-hair of his chair arm. There was a hole in the cover and his thin white nervous fingers plucked at the stuffing, and pulled it out and twisted it and threw it down, and plucked again. ‘What—what did Jasper hear?’ he asked falteringly. ‘How can I tell, Jordan? I was not with them. I tell you, I was eating my supper quietly, and chewing every mouthful. I cannot bolt my food. It is bad—unprincipled to do so.’ ‘They told you nothing?’ ‘I made no inquiries, and no information was volunteered.’ A slight noise behind him made Coyshe turn. Eve was in the doorway. ‘Here she is to answer for herself,’ said the surgeon. ‘Eve, my love, your father is curious about your excursion to Plymouth, and wants to know all you heard from the manager.’ ‘Oh, papa! I ought to have told you!’ stammered Eve. ‘What did he say?’ asked the old man, half-impatiently, half fearfully. ‘Look here, governor,’ said the surgeon; ‘it strikes me that you are not acting straight with the girl, and as she is about to become my wife, I’ll stand up for her and say what is fitting. I cannot see the fun of forcing her to run away a day’s journey to pick up a few scraps of information about her mother, when you keep locked up in your own head all that she wants to know. I can understand and make allowance for you not liking to tell her everything, if things were not—as is reported—quite ecclesiastically square between you and the lady. But Eve is no longer a child. I intend her to become my wife, and sooner or later she must know all. Make a clean breast and tell everything.’ ‘Yes,’ said Jasper entering, ‘the advice is good.’ ‘You come also!’ exclaimed the old man, firing up and pointing with trembling fingers to the intruder; ‘_you_ come—_you_ who have led my children into disobedience? My own daughters are in league against me. As for this girl, Eve, whom I have loved, who has been to me as the apple of my eye, she is false to me.’ ‘Oh, papa! dear papa!’ pleaded Eve with tears, ‘do not say this. It is not true.’