At that moment the hall door pushed slowly open, and there, the wind eddying behind him, his ulster up over his neck, his hair and beard wet with the rain, stood Uncle Timothy. “Hullo!” he cried, seeing them all grouped together. But old Mr. Trenchard called to him in a voice that trembled now with some troubled anticipation: “Why, your dinner’s soon done? Where’s the young man?” Uncle Timothy stared at them; he looked round at them, then, at a loss for the first time in his life, stammered: “Why, don’t you know...?” The old man turned, his stick shaking in his hand: “Where’s Katherine? Katie.... What’s happened to Katie? What’s this mean?” Mrs. Trenchard looked at him, then said: “It’s all right, Father—really. It’s quite all right.” “It’s not all right.” Fright like the terror of a child alone in the dark was in his eyes. “What have you done with her?” Her voice cold, without moving, she answered: “Katherine went up by the eight o’clock train to London with Philip. She has gone to Rachel Seddon.” “With Philip?... What do you say? I can’t hear you.” “Yes. She is to stay with Rachel Seddon.” “But why? What have you done? Why did you tell me lies?” “We have done nothing. We did not know that she was going.” “You didn’t know?... then she’s left us?” Mrs. Trenchard said nothing. He cried: “I told him—what it would be—if he took her ... Katie!” Then, his stick dropping with a rattle on to the stone floor, he fell back. Rocket caught him. There was a movement forward, but Mrs. Trenchard, saying swiftly, “George ... Rocket,” had swept them all outside the figure—the figure of an old, broken, tumbled-to-pieces man, held now by his son and Rocket, huddled, with his white, waxen hand trailing across George Trenchard’s strong arm. Harriet Trenchard said to her brother: “You knew!” then turned up the stairs. In the drawing-room Aunt Aggie, Aunt Betty, Millie and Henry faced Uncle Timothy. “Well!” said Aunt Aggie, “so you know all about it.... You’ve killed Father!” she ended with a grim, malignant triumph. He answered fiercely: “Yes, I knew. That’s why I came. She said that she would send up a note from the village. I thought that you wouldn’t have heard it yet. I came up to explain.” They all burst upon him then with questions: “What?” “Did you see her?” “What did she say?” “Where was she?” “Of course I saw her. She came to me before she went off.” “She came and you didn’t stop her!” This from Aunt Aggie. He turned then and addressed himself solely to her. “No. I didn’t stop her. I gave her my blessing.”