"Frances! Where have you been? Do you know that all the people have gone? If Dorothy has been keeping you, you ought not to have let her; you ought to have been there to say good-bye." She perceived that there was something unusual in her daughter's attitude. "Frances! What is the matter with you? Why are you staring at me like that? What is that you have in your hand? _The Times!_ Do you mean to say that you have been reading the newspaper and forgetting what you owe to your friends? What will your father say? Frances, speak to me! What is the matter with the girl?" Frances did speak; or, rather, she tried to speak; seeming to find as much difficulty in producing articulate sounds as Dorothy Gilbert had done a little time before. "Mother, look--look at the paper!" She held it out stiffly, as some lay figure might have done. Not unnaturally her mother observed her with surprise. "Frances, I insist upon your telling me what is the matter with you; why should I look at the paper? You know very well that your father doesn't like you to read newspapers." Frances said her four words over again: "Look at the paper!" "Why do you wish me to do so? What am I to look at?" She took the paper from her daughter's outstretched hand. Frances pointed to a part of it. Mrs Vernon began to read aloud: "'The historic inn, "The Bolton Arms," at Newcaster, was on Monday night----' What stuff is this?" "Go on!" Mrs Vernon did read on; but to herself. Presently there broke from her what seemed to be an involuntary exclamation; then another; then she lowered the paper, with a face which was almost as white as her daughter's. "Frances! It's--it's not true!" The girl said nothing; she went on: "Emmett? Wasn't that the name of Dorothy's guardian? Frances! You--you don't think that--that this--means Dorothy?" "How can I tell? You heard what Mrs Purchas said about Dorothy Gilbert of Newcaster?" "Did she--do you think--she referred to this? If she did, then--others may have known." "I believe they did--I believe Mr Denman knew--Jim's friend." "That boy! Do--do you think--Strathmoira knew?" The girl said nothing. Mother and daughter were still staring at each other, in silence, when Mr Vernon entered by the same route as his wife had come. Mrs Vernon turned towards him. "Harold, read this in _The Times_; tell me what it means." Mr Vernon put on his glasses with an air of deliberation for which his wife, in her new state of nervous tension, could almost have shaken him. By the time he had got the glasses to his liking he had lost the place.