This appeal and Grace’s opening of the door had the effect of directing every one into the hall, Mr. Grey asking Mrs. Curtis by the way, “Eh?  Then this is Rachel’s new female asylum, is it?”

“Yes, I always feared there was something odd about it.  I never liked that man, and now—­Fanny, my love, what is the matter?”

In a few simple words Fanny answered that she had contrived to be left alone with the children, and had then found signs of such shocking ill-treatment of them, that she had thought it right to bring them away at once.

“And you will commit those wretches.  You will send them to prison at once, Mr. Grey.  They have been deceiving my poor Rachel ever so long, and getting sums upon sums of money out of her,” said Mrs. Curtis, becoming quite blood-thirsty.

“If there is sufficient occasion I will summon the persons concerned to the Bench on Wednesday,” said Mr. Grey, a practical, active squire.

“Not till Wednesday!” said Mrs. Curtis, as if she thought the course of justice very tardy.  But the remembrance of Mr. Curtis’s magisterial days came to her aid, and she continued, “but you can take all the examinations here at once, you know; and Grace can find you a summons paper, if you will just go into the study.”

“It might save the having the children over to-morrow, certainly,” said Mr. Grey, and he was inducted almost passively into the leathern chair before the library table, where Mr. Curtis had been wont to administer justice, and Grace was diving deep into a bureau for the printed forms long treasured there, her mother directing her, though Mr. Grey vainly protested that any foolscap would do as well.  It was a curious scene.  Mrs. Grey with her daughters had the discretion to remove themselves, but every one else was in a state of excitement, and pressed into the room, the two boys disputing under their breath whether the civilians called it a court martial, and, with some confusion between mutineers and Englishwomen, hoping the woman would be blown from the mouth of a cannon, for hadn’t she gone and worn a cap like mamma’s?  They would have referred the question to Miss Williams, but she had been deposited by the Colonel on one of the chairs in the furthest corner of the room, and he stood sheltering her agitation and watching the proceedings.  Lady Temple still held a hand of each of her rescued victims, as if she feared they were still in danger, and all the time Rachel stood and looked like a statue, unable to collect her convictions in the hubbub, and the trust, that would have enabled her to defy all this, swept away from her by the morning’s transactions.  Yet still there was a hope that appearances might be delusive, and an habitual low estimate of Mr. Grey’s powers that made her set on looking with her own eyes, not with his.