"And why should he do it till he knows what sort of a wife I am going to make? And why should he go down on his knees more than I on mine? When there are more women in the world than men, too!"

The doctor shook his head.

"Ah, there is no arguing with you saucy girls," said he. "But I know that I, for my part, don't know of a man in the whole world who is worthy to marry one of my daughters."

As the doctor finished speaking, the door was opened quickly, and Mr.

Wedmore came in, looking white and worried.

Doreen ran to him with an anxious face.

"What have you done, papa, what have you done? Did you see him? What did you say? What did you say?"

Mr. Wedmore put his arm around his daughter, and kissed her tenderly.

"Don't trouble your head about him any more, my dear child," said he in a husky voice. "He isn't worth it. He isn't worthy of you."

Doreen drew away from her father, looking into his face with searching eyes and with an expression full of fear.

"Papa, what do you mean? You have sent him away?"

Mr. Wedmore answered in a loud and angry voice; but it was clear enough that the anger was not directed against his daughter.

"I did not send him away. He took himself off. I had hardly begun to speak to him--and I began quite quietly, mind--when he made the excuse of a letter which he found waiting for him, to go back to town. Without any ceremony, he rushed out of the study into the hall, and s.n.a.t.c.hed up his hat and coat to go."

"And is he gone?" asked Doreen, in a low voice, as she staggered back a step.

"Oh, yes, I suppose so. And a good riddance, too. There was no letter at all for him, I suppose."

"Yes, there was a letter!" faltered Doreen.

She gave a glance round her; seemed to remember suddenly the presence of a third person, for she blushed deeply on meeting the doctor's eyes; then, without another word, she sprang across the room to the door.

"Where are you going?" cried her father, as he followed her into the hall.

But she did not answer. The hall-door was closing with a loud clang.

Doreen was not the girl to lose her lover for want of a little energy.

She was fonder of Dudley than people imagined. There is always an inclination in the general mind to consider that a person of lively temperament is incapable of a deep feeling. And Mr. Wedmore had only shown a common tendency in believing that his beautiful and brilliant daughter would easily give up the lover whom he considered unworthy of her. But he was wrong. Much too high-spirited and too happy in her temperament and surroundings to brood over her lover's late negligence, she was perhaps too vain to believe that she had lost her hold upon his heart. At any rate, she liked him too well to give him up in this off-hand fashion without making an effort to discover the reason of his present mysterious conduct.

That letter which he had used as an excuse for his sudden departure had arrived at The Beeches by the afternoon post. Doreen had seen it with her own eyes; had noted with some natural curiosity that the direction was ill-spelled, ill-written; that the chirography was that of an almost illiterate female correspondent; and that the post-mark showed that it came from the East End of London. Rather a strange letter for the smart young barrister to receive, perhaps. And the thought of it made Doreen pause when she had got outside the door on the broad drive between the lawns.

Only for the moment. The next she was flying across the rougher gra.s.s outside the garden among the oaks and the beeches of the park. She saw no one in front of her, and for a few seconds her heart beat very fast.

She thought she had missed him.

There was no lodge at the park entrance; only a modest wooden gate in the middle of the fence. Doreen was hesitating whether to go through or to go back, when she saw the figure of Dudley Horne coming toward the gate from the stables.

So she waited.

As he came nearer, she, hidden from his sight by the trunk of an old oak-tree, grew uneasy and shy. Dark though it was, dimly as she could see him, Doreen felt convinced, from the rapid, steady pace at which he walked, that he was intent upon some set purpose, that he was not driven by pique at her father's words.

He came quite close to her, so that she saw his face. A dark-complexioned, strong face it was, clean-shaven, not handsome at all. But, on the other hand, it was just such a face as women admire; full of character, of ambition, of virility. Doreen had been debating with herself whether she dared speak to him; but the moment she got a full look at his face, her courage died away.

It was plain to her that, whatever might be the subject of the thoughts which were agitating his mind, she had no share in them.

So she let him pa.s.s out, and then crept back, downcast, shocked, ashamed, up the slope to the house.

She got in by the billiard-room, at the window of which she knocked.

Max, her brother, who was playing a game with Queenie, his younger sister, let her in, and cried out at sight of her white face:

"h.e.l.lo! Doreen, what's up? Had a row with Dudley? Or what?"

"I have had no 'row' with any one," answered the girl, very quietly.

"But--you must all know all about it presently, so you may as well hear it at once--Dudley has gone away."

"What?"

Max stopped in the act of trying for a carom, and stared at his sister.

"Why, he only came when I did, ten minutes ago!"

"He's gone, I tell you!" repeated Doreen, stamping her foot. "And--and listen, Max, I'm frightened about him! He's got something on his mind.

When he went away, I saw him; I was standing by the gate; he looked so--so _dreadful_ that I didn't dare to speak to him. _I!_ Think of that!"

"Had papa been speaking to him?" put in the shrewd younger sister, who was chalking her cue at the other end of the room.

The younger sister always sees most of the game.

"Ye--es, but--I don't know--I hardly think it was that," answered Doreen quickly. "At any rate, Max, I want you to do this for me; I want you to go up to town to-morrow and see him. I shan't rest until I know he's--he's all right--after what I saw of his face and the look on it.

Now, you will do this, won't you, won't you? Without saying anything to anybody, mind. Queenie, you can hold your tongue, too. Now, Max, there's a dear, you'll do it, won't you?"

Max told her that she was "off her head," that he could do no good, and so on. But he ended in giving way to the will of his handsome sister, whom he adored.

Max Wedmore was a good-looking fellow of five-and-twenty, with a reputation as a ne'er-do-weel, which, perhaps, he hardly deserved. His father had a great idea of bringing the young man up to some useful calling to keep him out of mischief. Not very terrible mischief, for the most part: only the result of too much leisure and too much money in inexperienced hands. The upshot of this difference of opinion between father and son was that while Mr. Wedmore was always finding mercantile situations for his son, Max was always taking care to be thrown out of them after a few weeks, and taking a rest which was by no means well earned.

This errand of his sister's was by no means unwelcome to him, since it took him back to town, where he could amuse himself better than he could in the country.

So, on the following morning, he found some sort of excuse to take him up, and started on his journey with the blessings of Doreen, and with very little opposition from his father, who was subdued and thankful to have got rid of Dudley with so little trouble.

It was soon after three when Max arrived at Dudley Horne's chambers in Lincoln's Inn. Of course, Dudley was out; so Max scribbled a note for his friend and left it on the table while he went to the Law Courts to look for him. Not finding him anywhere about, Max filled up the day in his own fashion, and returned to Dudley's room at about seven o'clock, when he supposed that his friend would either return to dinner or look in on his way to dine elsewhere.

He waited an hour, then went away and filled up his time at a music-hall, and returned once more at a quarter to eleven. Dudley, so he was told by the old woman who gave him the information, had not, as far as she knew, been in his rooms since the morning.

Max, who was a great friend of Dudley's, and could take any liberty he pleased in his precincts, lit the gas and the sitting-room fire, and installed himself in an arm-chair with a book. He could not read, however, for he was oppressed by some of Doreen's own fears. He was well acquainted with all his friend's ways, and he knew that for him to be away both from his chambers and from the neighborhood of the Courts for a whole day was most unusual with that particularly steady, plodding young man. He began to worry himself with the remembrance that Dudley had not been himself of late, that he had been moody, restless and unsettled without apparent cause.

Finally, Max worked himself into such a state of anxiety about his friend that when he at last heard the key turned in the lock of the outer door, he jumped up excitedly and made a rush for the door.

Before he reached it, however, he heard footsteps in the adjoining bedroom, the heavy tread of a man stumbling about in the dark, the overthrowing of some of the furniture.

Surely that could not be Dudley!