Tck!... How did you know she went to London? MRS. DE MULLIN She wrote from there, for her things. MRS. CLOUSTON I wonder she wasn’t ashamed. MRS. DE MULLIN So Hugo said. However, he said I might send them. But he made me send a letter with the things to say that he would have nothing more to do with her and that she was not to write again. For a time she didn’t write. Nearly five months. Then, when her baby was born, she wrote to tell me. That was how I knew she had taken the name of Seagrave. She mentioned it. MRS. CLOUSTON Did you show the letter to Hugo? MRS. DE MULLIN Yes. MRS. CLOUSTON What did he say? MRS. DE MULLIN Nothing. He just read it and gave it back to me without a word. MRS. CLOUSTON That’s the last you’ve heard of her, I suppose? MRS. DE MULLIN Oh no, Harriet. MRS. CLOUSTON Do you mean to say she goes _on_ writing? And you allow her? When Hugo said she was not to? MRS. DE MULLIN _(meekly)_ Yes. Not often, Harriet. Only occasionally. MRS. CLOUSTON She has no business to write at all. MRS. DE MULLIN Her letters are quite short. Sometimes I wish they were longer. They really tell one nothing about herself, though I often ask her. MRS. CLOUSTON You _ask_ her! Then _you_ write too! MRS. DE MULLIN I answer her letters, of course. Otherwise she wouldn’t go on writing. ‘ MRS. CLOUSTON Really, Jane, I’m surprised at you. So you’ve actually been corresponding with Janet all these years--and never told _me!_ I think you’ve behaved very badly. MRS. DE MULLIN I didn’t like to, Harriet. MRS. CLOUSTON Didn’t like to! MRS. DE MULLIN And as you don’t think I _ought_ to hear from her.... MRS. CLOUSTON. I don’t think you ought to hear from her, of course. But as you do hear naturally I should like to have seen the letters. MRS. DE MULLIN I didn’t know that, Harriet. In fact, I thought you would rather not. When a dreadful thing like this happens in a family it seems best not to write about it or to speak of it either, doesn’t it? Hugo and I never speak of it. MRS. CLOUSTON Does Hugo know you hear from her? MRS. DE MULLIN I think not. I have never told him. Nor Hester. I’m sure Hester would disapprove. MRS. CLOUSTON My dear Jane, what _can_ it matter whether Hester approves or not? Hester knows nothing about such things. At _her_ age! MRS. DE MULLIN Hester is twenty-eight. MRS. CLOUSTON Exactly. A girl like that. MRS. DE MULLIN _(sighs)_ Girls have such very strong opinions nowadays. Mrs. Clouston What does Janet live on? Teaching? MRS. DE MULLIN I suppose so. She had her Aunt Miriam’s legacy, of four hundred pounds of course. MRS. CLOUSTON Only four hundred pounds. MRS. DE MULLIN Yes. MRS. CLOUSTON I never approved of that legacy, Jane. Girls oughtn’t to have money left them. It makes them too independent. MRS. DE MULLIN Aunt Miriam was always so fond of Janet. MRS. CLOUSTON