are you doing here? And you, Aunt Hannah?"

At the sound of my voice Dulcie started up in her chair, and Aunt Hannah
turned quickly. To my amazement they both looked at me without uttering.
Dulcie's eyes were troubled. She seemed inclined to speak, yet afraid
to. The expression with which Aunt Hannah peered at me chilled me.

"What is the meaning of this, Mr. Berrington?" she asked coldly, after a
brief pause. Even in that moment of tense anxiety it struck me that Aunt
Hannah looked and spoke as though reproving a naughty schoolboy.

"Meaning of what?" I said stupidly, astonishment for the moment
deadening my intelligence.

"Of your bringing us up to London to find--this."

"Bringing you up? What do you mean, Miss Challoner?" I exclaimed,
mystified.

In spite of my deep anxiety, a feeling of annoyance, of resentment, had
come over me. No man likes to be made to look ridiculous, and here was I
standing before a lot of constables, all of them staring in inquisitive
astonishment at my being thus addressed by the old lady.

"Is this Mr. Berrington, madam?" an immensely tall, bull-necked,
plain-clothes policeman, of pompous, forbidding mien, suddenly asked.

"Yes, officer, it is," she snapped. During all the time I had known her
I had never seen her quite like this.