"Well," said Sabina reflectively, "I think I shall let Mrs. Vane know.

She'd be glad to have a sort of handle against her brother, I'm thinking. And these people--Mr. Dare and Miss West--seem to have got something to do with Beechfield, for I'm certain it was to Beechfield he went when he left here for that fortnight. He gave no address--that was natural maybe--but he'd got the Whitminster label on his bag when he came back. And, if Miss West was being courted by Mr. Lepel, and her father wanted to know who Mr. Lepel was and all about him, he might easily gather that Beechfield was the place to go to. I suppose he wanted to find out whether Mr. Lepel was engaged to Miss Vane or not.

And I've a sort of idea too that there's something mysterious about it all. Why shouldn't he have said straight out where he was going, especially when I had already told him that I knew Whitminster so well and belonged to Beechfield? It seems to me that Mr. Dare has got something to conceal; and I'd like to know what it is before I go any farther."

"Any farther!" said her aunt contemptuously. "It don't seem to me that you've got very far!"

"Farther than you think," was Miss Meldreth's reply. "He's afraid of me, or else he would have come to tea this afternoon. And a woman can always manage a man that's afraid of her."

Fortified by this conviction, Sabina sat down after tea to indite a letter to Mrs. Vane. She was not a very deft scribe, and the spelling of certain words was a mystery to her. But, with the faults of its orthography corrected the letter finally stood thus--

"MADAM--I thought you might like to know as how there is a gentleman, named Reuben Dare, lodging here at my aunt's, as seems to have a secret interest in Beechfield. I think, but I am not quite sure, that he spent a few days at the Beechfield inn not long ago. He is tall and thin and brown, with white hair and beard and very black eyes. He will not talk much about Beechfield, and yet seems to know it well. Says he comes from America. He was walking for a long time in Kensington Garden this morning with a young woman that goes by the name of Cynthia West and is a singer. She calls; him 'Father.' Madam, I take the liberty of informing you that Mr. H. Lepel visits her constant, and is said to be going to marry her. She is what gentlemen call good-looking, though too dark for my taste. It does not seem to be generally known that she has a parent living.

"Yours respectfully, "SABINA MELDRETH."

Mrs. Vane read this letter with considerable surprise. She meditated upon it for some time with closed lips and knitted brows; then she rang the bell for Parker.

"Parker," she said, "can you tell me whether any strangers have been visiting Beechfield lately?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am! There was an old gentleman at the 'Crown' a few days ago. The post-office woman told me that he came from America."

"Do you know his name?"

"Yes, ma'am--'Mr. Dare.'"

"The woman at the post-office told you that? Did you ever see him?"

"Yes, ma'am. He spoke to me one evening when I'd run out with a letter, and asked me the way to the Hall."

"And then?"

"He said he'd heard of a Mr. Lepel at Beechfield, ma'am," said Parker, rather reluctantly, "and that he knew a Mr. Lepel and wondered, whether it was the same. But it wasn't. The Mr. Lepel he knew was short and fair and was married; the Mr. Lepel that came here, as I told him, was dark and tall and engaged to Miss Vane."

"You had no right to tell him that, Parker; it is not public property."

"I beg your pardon, I'm sure, ma'am! I'd heard it so often that I thought everybody knew."

"What else did this Mr. Dare say?"

"I don't remember, ma'am."

"Did he ask no other questions? Did he ask, for instance, whether Mr.

Lepel was not very fond of Miss Vane?"

"Well, yes, ma'am; now you mention it I think he did--though how you came to guess it----"

"Never mind how I came to guess it. What did you say?"

"I said that he worshipped the ground she trod upon, and that she was just the same with him."

"And pray how did you know that?"--Parker shuffled.

"Well, ma'am, I couldn't rightly say; but it's what is general with young ladies and young gentlemen, and it wouldn't have looked well, I thought, to ha' said anythink else."

"Oh, I see! The remark was purely conventional," said Flossy cynically.

"I congratulate you, Parker, on always doing as much harm as you can whenever you take anything in hand. Did he seem pleased by what you said?"

"Not exactly pleased, ma'am--nor displeased; I think, if anything, he was more pleased than not."

"That will do," Mrs. Vane said shortly; and Parker retired, much relieved in her mind by having come off, as she considered, so well.

Mrs. Vane proceeded to electrify the household the next morning by declaring that she must at once go up to London in order to see her dentist. She announced her intention at a time when the General, much to his annoyance, could not possibly accompany her. She said to him very sweetly that she had chosen that hour on purpose because she did not want to put him to needless inconvenience, and that she preferred to go with Parker only as her companion. She hated to be seen, she said, when she was in pain.

The General fumed and fretted; but, as he had an important meeting to attend at Whitminster that day, he could but put his wife into the train and give Parker endless injunctions to be careful of her mistress.

Parker promised fervently to do all that lay in her power; and with a serene smile Flossy listened to the General's orders and her maid's asseverations with equal tranquility. They had the carriage to themselves; and not until the train was nearly to London did Mrs. Vane rouse herself from the restful semi-slumber in which she seemed to have passed the journey. Then she sat up suddenly, with a curiously wide-awake and resolute air, and addressed herself to her maid.

"I shall not require you at all to-day, Parker. I brought you only because the General would never have allowed me to come alone; but I dislike being attended by any one when I go to the dentist's or to the doctor's. You may wait at the railway-station until I come back. I may be only an hour, or I may be gone all day."

"The General's orders, ma'am," began Parker, with a gasp; but her mistress cut the sentence short at once.

"I suppose you understand that you are my servant and not the General's?" she said. "You will obey my orders, if you please."

She gave the maid some money, and instructions to spend as much as she pleased at buffet and book-stalls until her return.

"Enjoy yourself as much as you like and as much as you can," said Mrs.

Vane carelessly--"only don't stir from the station, for when I come back I shall want you at once."

She installed the faithful Parker safely in the waiting-room, and then went out and got into a cab--not a hansom cab; Mrs. Vane did not wish to be seen in her drive through the London streets. The address which she gave to the cabman was not that of her dentist, but of the lodgings at present tenanted by her brother.

Parker remained at the station in a state of tearful collapse. She was terribly afraid of being questioned and stormed at by the General when she got back for neglect of her trust. She was certainly what Flossy had called her--"a faithful fool." She wanted to do all that her mistress required; but it had not as yet even occurred to her that Mrs. Vane was quite certain to require utter silence, towards the General and everybody else, on the question of her disposition of the day. And, if silence was impossible, a good bold lie would do as well. Parker had not yet grasped the full amount of devotion that was expected of her.

Hubert had seldom been more surprised in his life than when the elegantly-dressed lady who was ushered into his sitting-room proved to be his sister Florence. She had never visited him before. He sprang up from his writing-table, which was piled high with books and manuscripts, flung a half-smoked cigar into the grate, and greeted her with a mixture of doubt and astonishment, which amused if it did not flatter the astute Mrs. Vane.

"This is indeed an unexpected pleasure! I hope you are not the bearer of ill news, Flossy! Is anything wrong at Beechfield?"

"Oh, dear, no! I came up to see my dentist," said Flossy carelessly, "and I thought that I would give you a call _en passant_. So these are your rooms? Not at all bad for a bachelor!"

"That is high praise from you, I suppose," said Hubert, smiling faintly.

"But you do not look at all well, Hubert. What is the matter with you?

You look terribly fagged!"

Her remark was justified by his appearance. His face had a drawn look which added ten years to his age; his eyes seemed almost to have sunk into his head. He made an impatient gesture, and looked away.

"I have not been very well," he said; "but there is no need to speak about it. I am very busy, and I want rest--change of scene and air."

"Why not come down to Beechfield?"

He gave a slight but perceptible shudder.

"No," he said briefly, and then stood leaning against his writing-table, and was silent.