"Well, whatever she is, and whoever she is, I want her to be outside the house before lunch time," said Mr. Wedmore. "I've just caught Max with his arm around her, and I haven't the slightest doubt that it was he who made up the story. Any tale's good enough for the old people! Look at her face--look at her dress! She is some hussy who ought never to have been allowed inside the house!" "It was Doreen who brought her in. And, to do her justice, George, I believe the girl didn't want to come," said Mrs. Wedmore. "And it's about Doreen I wanted to talk to you, George. This coming of Dudley has upset all the good we did by never mentioning him to her. To-day she's as much excited, as anxious and as miserable as if they were still engaged. And--and--oh! if the police come here to the house and take him awa-a-ay,"--and here the poor lady became almost too hysterical to articulate--"it will break the child's heart, George; it will indeed. And, oh! do you think it possible he really did--really did--" "Did what?" "Oh, you know! It's to dreadful to say. Why do you make me say it? They say something about his having gone out of his mind, and--and--killed somebody. It isn't true, George, is it?" "I don't know, I'm sure. Who told you?" "Max first, and then I learned the rest from the guesses of the girls. Oh, it is dreadful--shocking! And to think of his having been planted down upon us like this, just when I was beginning to hope that Doreen was getting kinder to Mr. Lindsay." "It's all the doing of that idiot Max!" said Mr. Wedmore, angrily. "I'll send him out to the Cape, and make an end of it. He shall go next month." "Oh, I didn't want that," pleaded Mrs. Wedmore, with a sudden change to tenderness and self-reproach. "Don't do anything in a hurry, George, anything you will be sorry for afterward." "Sorry for! The only thing I'm sorry for is that I didn't send him before, and saved all this." "And as for the girl, no doubt it's her fault, and Dudley's, a great deal more than Max's," went on the mother of Max, with the usual feminine excuse for the darling scapegrace. "When she's gone he will forget all about her, as he always does." This speech was an unlucky one. "Yes, that's just what I complain of, that he always forgets," said he, turning sharply upon his wife. "If he would stick to anything or to anybody for so much as a week, or a day, or an hour, I shouldn't mind so much. But he isn't man enough for that. As soon as this girl's out of the house, he'll be looking about for another one." "I'm sure it wasn't his fault that she came here at all," persisted Mrs. Wedmore, who never opposed her husband except in the interest of her son. "And I'm sure you can't blame him for doing what he could for his friend, even if he does put us to a little inconvenience. After all, Dudley's been like a son to you for a great many years--"