“I forbid your going,” roared her father, planting himself in front of her, and quite white with wrath.

May said no more.

“A pretty family you have brought up, Mrs. Nancy Newt,” said he, at length, looking at his wife with all the contempt which his voice expressed.  “A son who ruins me by his extravagance, a daughter who runs away with—­with”—­he hesitated to remember the exact expression—­“with a pauper-booby, and another daughter who defies and disobeys her father.  I congratulate you upon your charming family, upon your distinguished success, Mrs. Newt.  Is there no younger brother of your son-in-law whom you might introduce to Miss May Newt?  I beg your pardon, she is Miss Newt, now that her sister is so happily married,” said Boniface Newt, bowing ceremoniously to his daughter.

Mrs. Newt clasped her hands in an utterly helpless despair, and unconsciously raised them in a beseeching attitude before her.

“The husband’s duty takes him away from home,” continued Mr. Newt.  “While he is struggling for the maintenance of his family he supposes that his wife is caring for his children, and that she has, at least, the smallest speck of an idea of what is necessary to be done to make them tolerably well behaved.  Some husbands are doomed to be mistaken.”

Boniface Newt bowed, and smiled sarcastically.

“Yes, and as if it were not enough to have my wife such a model trainer—­and my son so careful—­and my daughter so obedient—­and my younger daughter so affectionate—­I must also have trials in my business.  I expected a great loan from Van Boozenberg’s bank, and I haven’t got it.  He’s an old driveling fool.  Mrs. Newt, you must curtail expenses.  There’s one mouth less, and one Stewart’s bill less, at any rate.”

“Father,” said May, as if she could not bear the cool cutting adrift of her sister from the family, “Fanny is not dead.”

“No,” replied her father, sullenly.  “No, the more’s the—­”

He stopped, for he caught May’s eye, and he could not finish the sentence.

“Mr. Newt,” said his wife, at length, “perhaps Alfred Dinks is not poor.”

That was the chance, but Mr. Newt was skeptical.  He had an instinctive suspicion that no rich young man, however much a booby, would have married Fanny clandestinely.  Men are forced to know something of their reputations, and Boniface Newt was perfectly aware that it was generally understood he had no aversion to money.  He knew also that he was reputed rich, that his family were known to live expensively, and he was quite shrewd enough to believe that any youth in her own set who ran off with his daughter did so because he depended upon her father’s money.  He was satisfied that the Newt family was not to be a gainer by the new alliance.  The more he thought of it the more he was convinced, and the more angry he became.  He was still storming, when the door was thrown open and Mrs. Dagon rushed in.