Pamela cried out, in an awestruck voice:-- “Papa, papa! Don’t you know us, papa?” And Babs ran forward to kiss him. The touch of the warm young lips made him look round and say almost mechanically:-- “Babs! Hallo, Babs!” Then his sister spoke. “The girls don’t want to go away with me. Will you tell them what is your wish?” “My wish is that you should come away with her--with us,” said he, after a moment’s pause, as if to collect his thoughts. And then he seemed to recover himself a little, and went on: “Yes, and we must make haste. There is no time to be lost. We will all go together and at once.” “But, papa, we’re not ready. We didn’t come prepared for a journey!” protested Pamela in great distress and alarm. His sister whispered to him, and Mr. Candover said quickly:-- “No matter. Paris is not at the other end of the earth. Your things can be sent on after you. Call a hansom--No, a hansom won’t hold us. Go to the window and hail a four-wheeler, or get the porter to whistle for one, and let us start at once. Pamela, you go with your aunt. Babs, come with me.” And before the frightened and almost weeping Audrey could do more than try to intervene with faint words of entreaty, of protest, Mr. Candover and his sister had carried the girls off before her very eyes, and led them downstairs and out of her sight. Audrey made a rapid step towards the door, when a loud and piercing cry reached her ears. CHAPTER XXV Now there was upon the face of Mademoiselle Laure, as she followed Mr. Candover and Babs downstairs, with Pamela struggling to get free from the firm grasp of her lean fingers, an expression which betrayed the fact that she feared mischief. And her alarm was well founded. Scarcely had Mr. Candover reached the last stair, when a man rushed out from behind the door, where he had evidently been waiting, and barred his passage. Babs uttered a shrill scream, and her father told her fiercely to hold her tongue. “Where are you off to, Mr. Candover?” asked the man roughly. Shaken as he was by the fall from the effects of which he was still suffering, Mr. Candover had been considerably startled by the unexpected appearance of this man; but after a pause of a few seconds he recovered himself, laughed, and leaning back against the wall, said:-- “Gossett! What are you doing here?” The young man, frowning sullenly, looked for a moment somewhat confused by the question, which was put quite quietly and without apparent discomposure. “Well, I--I want to have a talk with you. We all do,” he said sullenly, as Pamela, who had pressed forward behind her sister, recognised the man as one of the “friends” who had been waiting at her father’s flat in Victoria Street that morning. “Certainly. But not here. Didn’t I tell you to be at my flat this morning?”