ctful manner.

"Beg you pardon, ma'am--but are you going away for good?"

He was startled by her tone. Its unexpected, unladylike harshness fell
on his trained ear with the disagreeable effect of a false note. "Yes.
I am going away. And the best thing for all of you is to go away too,
as soon as you like. You can go now, to-day, this moment. You had your
wages paid you only last week. The longer you stay the greater your
loss. But I have nothing to do with it now. You are the servants of
Mr de Barral--you know."

The butler was astounded by the manner of this advice, and as his eyes
wandered to the drawing-room door the governess extended her arm as if
to bar the way. "Nobody goes in there." And that was said still in
another tone, such a tone that all trace of the trained respectfulness
vanished from the butler's bearing. He stared at her with a frank
wondering gaze. "Not till I am gone," she added, and there was such an
expression on her face that the man was daunted by the mystery of it.
He shrugged his shoulders slightly and without another word went down
the stairs on his way to the basement, brushing in the hall past Mr
Charles who hat on head and both hands rammed deep into his overcoat
pockets paced up and down as though on sentry duty there.

The ladies' maid was the only servant upstairs, hovering in the passage
on the first floor, curious and as if fascinated by the woman who stood
there guarding the door. Being beckoned closer imperiously and asked by
the governess to bring out of the now empty rooms the hat and veil, the
only objects besides the furniture still to be found there, she did so
in silence but inwardly fluttered. And while waiting uneasily, with the
veil, before that woman who, without moving a step away from the
drawing-room door was pinning with careless haste her hat on her head,
she heard within a sudden burst of laughter from Miss de Barral enjoying
the fun of the water-colour lesson given her for the last time by the
cheery old man.

Mr and Mrs Fyne ambushed at their window--a most incredible occupation
for people of their kind--saw with renewed anxiety a cab come to the
door, and watched some luggage being carried out and put on its roof.
The butler appeared for a moment, then went in again. What did it mean?
Was Flora going to be taken to her father; or were these people, that
woman and her horrible nephew, about to carry her off somewhere? Fyne
couldn't tell. He do