“He was very civil, couldn’t have been more friendly, and we talked and talked; he was always harping on his daughter; till at last he came out with what he wanted.  Would I give her house-room for a bit, just to keep her out of the way of her husband and such-like designing people, supposing she should turn obstinate and refuse to go abroad with him?  ‘You’ve a rare old roomy place,’ he said.  ’I saw some rooms upstairs at the end of a long passage which don’t seem to have been used for years.  You might keep my lady in one of those; and that fine husband of hers would be as puzzled where to find her as if she was in the centre of Africa.  It would be a very easy thing to do,’ he said; ’and it would be only friendly in you to do it.’”

“O, Stephen!” cried his wife reproachfully, “how could you ever consent to such a wicked thing?”

“I don’t know about the wickedness of it,” Mr. Whitelaw responded, with rather a sullen air; “a daughter is bound to obey her father, isn’t she? and if she don’t, I should think he had the power to do what he liked with her.  That’s how I should look at it, if I was a father.  It’s all very well to talk, you see, Nell, but you don’t know the arguments such a man as that can bring to bear.  I didn’t want to do it; I was against it from the first.  It was a dangerous business, and might bring me into trouble.  But that man bore down upon me to that extent that he made me promise anything; and when I went home that night, it was with the understanding that I was to fit up a room—­there was a double door to be put up to shut out sound, and a deal more—­ready for Mrs. Holbrook, in case her father wanted to get her out of the way for a bit.”

“He promised to pay you, of course?” Ellen said, not quite able to conceal the contempt and aversion which this confession of her husband’s inspired.

“Well, yes, a man doesn’t put himself in jeopardy like that for nothing.  He was to give me a certain sum of money down the first night that Mrs. Holbrook slept in my house; and another sum of money before he went to America, and an annual sum for continuing to take care of her, if he wanted to keep her quiet permanently, as he might.  Altogether it would be a very profitable business, he told me, and I ought to consider myself uncommonly lucky to get such a chance.  As to the kindness or unkindness of the matter, it was better than shutting her up in a lunatic asylum, he said; and he might have to do that, if I refused to take her.  She was very weak in her head, he said, and the doctors would throw no difficulty in his way, if he wanted to put her into a madhouse.”

“But you must have known that was a lie!” exclaimed Ellen indignantly.  “You had seen and talked to her; you must have known that Mrs. Holbrook was as sane as you or I.”