This was a mean thing that Sydney had done, and he was not so hardened as to have done it without a blush. Yet so admirably does our veneer of civilization conceal the knots and flaws beneath it that he went to sleep in the genuine belief that he had saved his sister from a terrible danger, and the name of Campion from the degradation which threatened it.

On the next day he reached Maple Cottage between four and five o'clock.

"How is your mistress?" he said to Milly.

She had opened the door and let him in with a vivid blush and smile, which made him for a moment, and in the broad light of day, feel somewhat ashamed of himself.

"Oh, sir, she is no better. She has locked herself in, and I heard her sobbing, fit to break her heart," said Milly, in real concern for her mistress' untold grief.

"Let her know that I am here. I will go to Mrs. Campion's room."

"Well, mother!" he said, in the hearty, jovial voice in which he knew that she liked best to be accosted, "here is your absentee boy again.

How are you by this time?"

"Not very bright to-day, Sydney," said his mother. "I never am very bright now-a-days. But what are you doing, my dear? Are you getting on well? Have they----"

"No, mother, they have not made me Lord Chancellor yet. We must wait a while for that. But I must not complain; I have plenty of work, and my name is in the papers every day, and I have applied for silk, and--have you found your spectacles yet, mother?"

Details of his life and work were, as he knew, absolutely unmeaning to Mrs. Campion.

"Oh, the rogue! He always teased me about my spectacles," said Mrs.

Campion, vaguely appealing to an unseen audience. "It is a remarkable thing, Sydney, but I put them down half an hour ago, and now I cannot find them anywhere."

"Well, now, that is strange, Mrs. Campion; but not very unusual. If I remember right, you had lost your spectacles when I was here last; and as I happened to pa.s.s a good shop this morning, it occurred to me that you would not object to another pair of pebbles. So here they are; and I have bought you something to test them with."

He produced a cabinet portrait of himself, such as the stationers were beginning to hang on the line in their shop windows. The fact marked a distinct advance in his conquest of popularity; and Sydney was not mistaken in supposing that the old lady would appreciate this portrait of her handsome and distinguished son. So, with her spectacles and her picture, Mrs. Campion was happy.

When Sydney's knock came to the door, Lettice was still crouching by her bedside over the letter which had reached her an hour before. She sprang up in nervous agitation, not having recognized the knock, and began to bathe her face and brush her hair. She was relieved when Milly came and told her who the caller was; but even Sydney's visit at that moment was a misfortune. She was inclined to send him an excuse, and not come down; but in the end she made up her mind to see him.

"My dear child," Sydney said, kissing her on the cheek, "how ill you look! Is anything the matter?"

"No, nothing. Don't take any notice of me," Lettice said, with a significant look at her mother.

They conversed for a time on indifferent matters, and then Sydney asked her to show him the garden. It was evident that he wanted to speak to her privately, so she took him into her study; and there, without any beating about the bush, he began to discharge his mind of its burden.

"I want to talk to you seriously, Lettice, and on what I'm afraid will be a painful subject; but it is my manifest duty to do so, as I think you will admit before I go. You are, I believe, on friendly terms--tolerably familiar terms--with Mr. Walcott?"

This was in true forensic style; but of course Sydney could not have made a greater mistake than by entering solemnly, yet abruptly, on so delicate a matter. Lettice was in arms at once.

"Stay a moment, Sydney. You said this was to be a painful subject to me, and then you mention the name of Mr. Walcott. I do not understand."

"Well!" said Sydney, somewhat disconcerted; "I don't know what made me conclude that it would be painful. I did not mean to say that. I am very glad it is not so."

He stopped to cough, then looked out of the window, and softly whistled to himself. Lettice, meanwhile, cast about hastily in her mind for the possible bearing of what her brother might have to say. She was about to take advantage of his blunder, and decline to hear anything further; but for more than one reason which immediately occurred to her, she thought that it would be better to let him speak.

"I do not think you could have any ground for supposing that such a subject would be specially painful to me; but never mind that. What were you going to say?"

Now it was Sydney's turn to be up in arms, for he felt sure that Lettice was acting a part.

"What I know for a fact," he said, "is that you have seen a good deal of Mr. Walcott during the past six months, and that people have gone so far as to remark on your--on his manifest preference for your company. I want to say that there are grave reasons why this should not be permitted to go on."

Lettice bit her lip sharply, but said nothing.

"Do you know," Sydney continued, becoming solemn again as he prepared to hurl his thunderbolts, "that Mr. Walcott is a married man?"

"Whether I know it or not, I do not acknowledge your right to ask me the question."

"I ask it by the right of a brother. Do you know that if he is not a married man, he is something infinitely worse? That the last time his wife was seen in his company, they went on a lonely walk together, and he came back again without her?"

"How do you know this?" Lettice asked him faintly. He set down her agitation to the wrong cause, and thought that his design was succeeding.

"I know it from the man who was most intimately connected with Walcott at the time. And I heard it at my club--in the course of the same conversation in which your name was mentioned. Think what that means to me! However, it may not have gone too far if we are careful to avoid this man in future. He does not visit here, of course?"

"He has been here."

"You surely don't correspond?"

"We have corresponded."

"Good heavens! it is worse than I thought. But you will promise me not to continue the acquaintance?"

"No, I cannot promise that!"

"Not after all I have told you of him?"

"You have told me nothing to Mr. Walcott's discredit. I have answered your questions because you are, as you reminded me, my brother. Does it not strike you that you have rather exceeded your privilege?"

Sydney was amazed at her quiet indifference.

"I really cannot understand you, Lettice. Do you mean to say that you will maintain your friendship with this man, although you know him to be a----"

"Well?"

"At any rate, a _possible_ murderer?"

"The important point," said Lettice coldly, "seems to be what Mr.

Walcott is actually, not what he is possibly. Your 'possible' is a matter of opinion, and I am very distinctly of opinion that Mr. Walcott is an innocent and honorable man."

"If you believe him innocent, then you believe that his wife is living?"

"I know nothing about his wife. That is a question which does not concern me."

"Your obstinacy pa.s.ses my comprehension." When Sydney said this, he rose from the chair in which he had been sitting and stood on the hearth-rug before the grate, with his hands behind him and his handsome brows knitted in a very unmistakable frown. It was in a lower and more regretful voice that he continued, after a few minutes' silence: "I must say that the independent line you have been taking for some time past is not very pleasing to me. You seem to have a perfect indifference to our name and standing in the world. You like to fly in the face of convention, to----"

"Oh, Sydney, why should we quarrel?" said Lettice, sadly. Hitherto she had been standing by the window, but she now came up to him and looked entreatingly into his face. "Indeed, I will do all that I can to satisfy you. I am not careless about your prospects and standing in the world; indeed, I am not. But they could not be injured by the fact that I am earning my own living as an author. I am sure they could not!"

"You say that you will do all you can to satisfy me," said Sydney, who was not much mollified by her tenderness. "Will you give up the acquaintance of that man?"