“What’s the matter?  Something’s happened, or you wouldn’t come to see me so early.”

“Something has happened,” he answered, “and one turns to you in times of stress, just as one used to turn to your dear brother, Henry.  You have character, shrewdness and decision.”

Miss Ironsyde saw light.

“You’ve come for Raymond,” she said.

“Now how did you divine that?  But, as a matter of fact, I’ve come for somebody else.  A very serious thing has happened and if we older heads—­”

“Who told you about it?”

“This morning, an hour ago, it was broken to me by Sabina’s mother.”

“Tell me just what she told you, Ernest.”

He obeyed and described the interview exactly.

“I cannot understand that, for Sabina saw me last night and explained the situation.  I impressed upon her the importance of keeping the matter as secret as possible for the present.”

“Nevertheless Mary Dinnett told me.  She is a very impulsive person—­so is Sabina; but in Sabina’s case there is brain power to control impulse; in her mother’s case there is none.”

“I’m much annoyed,” declared Miss Ironsyde—­“not of course, that you should know, but that there should be talking.  Please go home and tell them both to be quiet.  This chattering is most dangerous and may defeat everything.  Last night I wrote to Raymond directing him to come and see me immediately.  I did not tell him why; but I told him it was urgent.  I made the strongest appeal possible.  When you arrived, I thought it was he.  He should have been here an hour ago.”

“If he is coming, I will go,” answered Ernest.  “I don’t wish to meet him at present.  He has done very wrongly—­wickedly, in fact.  The question is whether marriage with Sabina—­”

“There is no question about that in my opinion,” declared the lady.  “I am a student of character, and had she been a different sort of girl—.  But even as it is I suspend judgment until I have seen Raymond.  It is quite impossible, however, after hearing her, to see what excuse he can offer.”

“She is a very superior girl indeed, and very clever and refined.  I always hoped she would marry a schoolmaster, or somebody with cultured tastes.  But her great and unusual beauty doubtless attracted Raymond.”

“I think you’d better go home, Ernest.  I’ll write to you after I’ve seen the boy.  Do command silence from both of them.  I’m very angry and very distressed, but really nothing can be done till we hear him.  My sympathy is entirely with Sabina.  Let her go on with her life for a day or two and—­”

“She’s changed her life and left the Mill.  I understand Raymond told her to do so.”

“That is a good sign, I suppose.  If she’s done that, the whole affair must soon be known.  But we talk in the dark.”

Mr. Churchouse departed, forgot his anxieties in a second-hand book shop and presently returned home.