Fyne with his masculine imagination was less inclined to rejoice extravagantly at the girl's escape from the moral dangers which had been menacing her defenceless existence.

It was a confoundedly big price to pay.

What an unfortunate little thing she was! "We might be able to do something to comfort that poor child at any rate for the time she is here," said Mrs.
Fyne.

She felt under a sort of moral obligation not to be indifferent.
But no comfort for anyone could be got by rushing out into the street at this early hour; and so, following the advice of Fyne not to act hastily, they both sat down at the window and stared feelingly at the great house, awful to their eyes in its stolid, prosperous, expensive respectability with ruin absolutely standing at the door.
By that time, or very soon after, all Brighton had the information and formed a more or less just appreciation of its gravity.

The butler in Miss de Barral's big house had seen the news, perhaps earlier than anybody within a mile of the Parade, in the course of his morning duties of which one was to dry the freshly delivered paper before the fire--an occasion to glance at it which no intelligent man could have neglected.
He communicated to the rest of the household his vaguely forcible impression that something had gone d---bly wrong with the affairs of "her father in London." This brought an atmosphere of constraint through the house, which Flora de Barral coming down somewhat later than usual could not help noticing in her own way.