tablecloth. 'My God!' he said, 'I'll go after them and kill him.
I'll go after them and kill him.' For the moment I thought it was a telegram from Gwen."
"But what did father imagine?"
"Of course he imagined! Any one would! 'What has happened, Peter?' I asked. He was standing up with the telegram crumpled in his hand. He used a most awful word! Then he said, 'It's Ann Veronica gone to join her sister!' 'Gone!' I said. 'Gone!' he said. 'Read that,' and threw the telegram at me, so that it went into the tureen. He swore when I tried to get it out with the ladle, and told me what it said. Then he sat down again in a chair and said that people who wrote novels ought to be strung up. It was as much as I could do to prevent him flying out of the house there and then and coming after you. Never since I was a girl have I seen your father so moved. 'Oh! little Vee!' he cried, 'little Vee!' and put his face between his hands and sat still for a long time before he broke out again."
Ann Veronica had remained standing while her aunt spoke.
"Do you mean, aunt," she asked, "that my father thought I had gone off--with some man?"
"What else COULD he think? Would any one DREAM you would be so mad as to go off alone?"
"After--after what had happened the night before?"
"Oh, why raise up old scores? If you could see him this morning, his poor face as white as a sheet and all cut about with shaving! He was for coming up by the very first train and looking for you, but I said to him, 'Wait for the letters,' and there, sure enough, was yours. He could hardly open the envelope, he trembled
