Colonel Kingsward’s face changed many times during this breathless deliverance. He said first, “He’s at Mackinnon’s, I know;” then, “In London!” with no pleasure at all in his tone; and finally, “Miss Lance!” angrily, his face covered with a dark glow. “What is all this?” he cried, when she stopped for want of breath. “Charlie--in town? You must be out of your senses. Why, he is in Scotland. I heard from--, eh? Well, I don’t know that I had any letter, but--. And ill--and Bee with him? What is the meaning of all this? Are you both mad, or in a conspiracy to make yourselves disagreeable to me?” “Papa!” cried Betty, very ready to take up the challenge; but on the whole the news was too important to justify a combat of self-defence. She produced Bee’s note out of its envelope, and placed it before him, running on with a report of it while the Colonel groped for his eyeglass and arranged it upon his nose. “A lady came and fetched her,” cried Betty, hurriedly, to forestall the reading, “and brought her up to town and took her to him--oh, so bad--where he had been for weeks; and she told him you had been to Oxford, and something about Miss Lance; and he wants to see Miss Lance, and calls and calls for her, and won’t be satisfied. Oh, papa!” Colonel Kingsward had arranged his _pince-nez_ very carefully; he had taken up Bee’s note, and went over it word by word while Betty made her breathless report. When he came to the first mention of Miss Lance he struck his hand upon the table like any other man in a passion, making all the cups and plates ring. “The little fool!” he said, “the little fool! What right had she to bring in that name? It was this that called forth Betty’s exclamation, but no more was said by either till he read it out to the end. Then he flung the letter from him, and getting up, paced about the room in rage and dismay. “A long illness,” said the Colonel, “was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to him to sweep all that had passed before out of his mind; and here does this infernal little idiot, this little demon full of spite and malice, get at the boy at his worst moment and bring everything back. What right had she, the spiteful, envious little fool, to bring in the name of a lady--of a lady to whom you all owe the greatest respect?” “Papa!” cried Betty, overwhelmed, “Bee couldn’t have meant any harm.”