"Why does n't he get on the train and go to Hunston? Or, if Mrs.
Carstairs is really so decent about the thing, why doesn't she get on
the train and bring Mary down here?"

"Good. I put both of those up to him, and they seemed to embarrass him a
little. I gathered that he had suggested them both to Mrs. Carstairs,
and that she had turned them down hard. The ground seemed delicate. You
see, we must allow for the personal equation in all this. No matter
where they met, he couldn't hang around the house getting acquainted
with Mary without coming into sort of intimate contact with Mrs.
Carstairs, and giving a kind of domestic touch to their relations. You
see how that is. She wants to be fair and generous about it, but if she
is in love with him, that would be a little more than flesh and blood
could bear, I suppose. Then, as I say, there is the pig-headedness of
the child. Anyway, Uncle Elbert assures me that both those plans are
simply out of the question. So there is the situation. Mary won't come
to see him by herself. Mrs. Carstairs won't bring Mary to see him, and
she won't let him come to see Mary. Well, what remains?"

Peter said nothing. In a room overhead a manifestly improvised quartet
struck up "Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot?" with great enthusiasm.

"You see there is only one thing. The old gentleman," said Varney, "has
brooded over the matter till it's broken him all up. He was in bed when
I was there just now. He asked me to go to Hunston and bring his
daughter to him. I told him that kidnapping was a little out of my line.
'Kidnapping is rather a harsh word,' he said. 'Yes,' said I, 'it's a
criminal word, I believe.' But--"

Peter looked up, interrupting. "Is this all straight? Is that really