Dolores looked pale and frightened,
and exclaimed,
'Oh, but he has got away!'
'My dear, I am grieved to say that he has not.'
Dolores understood, and submitted more quietly and resignedly than her
aunt had feared. She was a barrister's daughter, and once or twice her
father had taken her and her mother part of the way on circuit with
him, and she had been in court, so that she had known from the first
that if her uncle were arrested there was no choice but that she must
speak out. So she only trembled very much and said--
'Aunt Lily, are you going with me?'
'Indeed I am, my poor child. Uncle Regie is gone on.'
No more was spoken then, but Dolores put her cold hand into her aunt's
muff.
Gillian kept all the flock prisoned in the schoolroom. Wilfred, Val,
and Fergus rushed to the window, and were greatly disappointed not to
see a policeman on the box, 'taking Dolores to be tried'--as Fergus
declared, and Wilfred insisted, just because Gillian and Mysie
contradicted it with all their might. He continued to repeat it with
variations and exaggerations, until Jasper heard him, and declared that
he should have a thorough good licking if he said so again,
administering a cuff by way of earnest. Wilfred howled, and was
ordered not to be such an ape, and Fly looked on in wonder at the
domestic discipline.
The superintendent had, in fact, walked on with Uncle Reginald, and
Dolores saw nothing of him, but was put into an empty first-class
carriage, into which her aunt followed her, but her uncle, observing,
'You know how to manage her, Lily,' betook himself to a smoking-
carriage, and left them to themselves.
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