“I daresay you’ll be able to give us some information then,” said Sir Lucius. “Shall I ask him a few questions, Torrington? The police sergeant said----” “The police sergeant is a damned fool,” said Lord Torrington. “She can’t be going about in a boat. She doesn’t know how to row.” “Frank,” said Sir Lucius, “did you and Priscilla happen to see anything of a young lady----” “You may just as well tell him the story,” said Lord Torrington. “It’ll be in the papers in a day or two if we can’t find her.” “Very well, Torrington. Just as you like. The fact is, Frank, that Lord Torrington is here looking for his daughter, who has----well, a week ago she disappeared.” “Disappeared!” said Lord Torrington. “Why not say bolted?” “Ran away from home,” said Sir Lucius. “According to your aunt----” said Lord Torrington. “She’s not my aunt,” said Frank. “Oh, isn’t she?” Lord Torrington’s tone suggested that this was a distinct advantage to Frank. “According to Miss Lentaigne then, the girl has asserted her right to live her own life untrammelled by the fetters of conventionality. That’s the way she put it, isn’t it, Lentaigne?” “Lady Isabel,” said Sir Lucius, “came over to Ireland. We know that.” “Booked her luggage in advance from Euston,” said Lord Torrington, “under another name. I had a detective on the job, and he worried that out. Women are all going mad nowadays; though I had no notion Isabel went in for--well, the kind of thing your sister talks, Lentaigne. I thought she was religious. She used to be perpetually going to church, evensong on the Vigil of St. Euphrosyne, and that kind of thing, but I am told lots of parsons now have taken up these advanced ideas about women. It may have been in church she heard them.” “From Dublin,” said Sir Lucius, “she came on here. The police sergeant----” “Who’s a dunderheaded fool,” said Lord Torrington. “He says there’s a young lady going about the bay for the last two days in a boat.” “That’s the wrong tack altogether,” said Lord Torrington. “Isabel would never think of going in a boat. I tell you she can’t row.” “Now, Frank,” said Sir Lucius, “did you see or hear anything of her?” Frank would have liked very much to deny that he had seen any lady. His dislike of Lord Torrington was strong in him. He had been snubbed in the train, injured while leaving the steamer, and actually insulted that very afternoon. He felt, besides, the strongest sympathy with any daughter who ran away from a home ruled by Lord and Lady Torrington. But he had been asked a straight question and it was not in him to tell a lie deliberately. “We did meet a lady,” he said, “in fact we lunched with her today, but her name was Rutherford.” “Was she rowing about alone in a boat?” said Lord Torrington. “She had a boy to row her,” said Frank. “She’d hired the boat. She said she came from the British Museum and was collecting sponges.”