ARNOLD was the first who broke the silence. "Is your fatherseriously ill?" he asked.

Geoffrey answered by handing him the card.

Sir Patrick, who had stood apart (while the question ofRatcatcher's relapse was under discussion) sardonically studyingthe manners and customs of modern English youth, now cameforward, and took his part in the proceedings. Lady Lundieherself must have acknowledged that he spoke and acted as becamethe head of the family, on t his occasion.

"Am I right in supposing that Mr. Delamayn's father isdangerously ill?" he asked, addressing himself to Arnold.

"Dangerously ill, in London," Arnold answered. "Geoffrey mustleave Windygates with me. The train I am traveling by meets thetrain his brother is traveling by, at the junction. I shall leavehim at the second station from here."

"Didn't you tell me that Lady Lundie was going to send you to therailway in a gig?"

"Yes."

"If the servant drives, there will be three of you--and therewill be no room."

"We had better ask for some other vehicle," suggested Arnold.

Sir Patrick looked at his watch. There was no time to change thecarriage. He turned to Geoffrey. "Can you drive, Mr. Delamayn?"

Still impenetrably silent, Geoffrey replied by a nod of the head.

Without noticing the unceremonious manner in which he had beenanswered, Sir Patrick went on:

"In that case, you can leave the gig in charge of thestation-master. I'll tell the servant that he will not be wantedto drive."

"Let me save you the trouble, Sir Patrick," said Arnold.

Sir Patrick declined, by a gesture. He turned again, withundiminished courtesy, to Geoffrey. "It is one of the duties ofhospitality, Mr. Delamayn, to hasten your departure, under thesesad circumstances. Lady Lundie is engaged with her guests. I willsee myself that there is no unnecessary delay in sending you tothe station." He bowed--and left the summer-house.

Arnold said a word of sympathy to his friend, when they werealone.

"I am sorry for this, Geoffrey. I hope and trust you will get toLondon in time."

He stopped. There was something in Geoffrey's face--a strangemixture of doubt and bewilderment, of annoyance andhesitation--which was not to be accounted for as the naturalresult of the news that he had received. His color shifted andchanged; he picked fretfully at his finger-nails; he looked atArnold as if he was going to speak--and then looked away again,in silence.

"Is there something amiss, Geoffrey, besides this bad news aboutyour father?" asked Arnold.

"I'm in the devil's own mess," was the answer.

"Can I do any thing to help you?"

Instead of making a direct reply, Geoffrey lifted his mightyhand, and gave Arnold a friendly slap on the shoulder which shookhim from head to foot. Arnold steadied himself, andwaited--wondering what was coming next.

"I say, old fellow!" said Geoffrey.

"Yes."

"Do you remember when the boat turned keel upward in LisbonHarbor?"

Arnold started. If he could have called to mind his firstinterview in the summer-house with his father's old friend hemight have remembered Sir Patrick's prediction that he wouldsooner or later pay, with interest, the debt he owed to the manwho had saved his life. As it was his memory reverted at a boundto the time of the boat-accident. In the ardor of his gratitudeand the innocence of his heart, he almost resented his friend'squestion as a reproach which he had not deserved.

"Do you think I can ever forget," he cried, warmly, "that youswam ashore with me and saved my life?"

Geoffrey ventured a step nearer to the object that he had inview.

"One good turn deserves another," he said, "don't it?"

Arnold took his hand. "Only tell me!" he eagerly rejoined--"onlytell me what I can do!"

"You are going to-day to see your new place, ain't you?"

"Yes."

"Can you put off going till to-morrow?"

"If it's any thing serious--of course I can!"

Geoffrey looked round at the entrance to the summer-house, tomake sure that they were alone.

"You know the governess here, don't you?" he said, in a whisper.

"Miss Silvester?"

"Yes. I've got into a little difficulty with Miss Silvester. Andthere isn't a living soul I can ask to help me but _you._"

"You know I will help you. What is it?"

"It isn't so easy to say. Never mind--you're no saint either, areyou? You'll keep it a secret, of course? Look here! I've actedlike an infernal fool. I've gone and got the girl into ascrape--"

Arnold drew back, suddenly understanding him.

"Good heavens, Geoffrey! You don't mean--"

"I do! Wait a bit--that's not the worst of it. She has left thehouse."

"Left the house?"

"Left, for good and all. She can't come back again."

"Why not?"

"Because she's written to her missus. Women (hang 'em!) never dothese things by halves. She's left a letter to say she'sprivately married, and gone off to her husband. Her husbandis--Me. Not that I'm married to her yet, you understand. I haveonly promised to marry her. She has gone on first (on the sly) toa place four miles from this. And we settled I was to follow, andmarry her privately this afternoon. That's out of the questionnow. While she's expecting me at the inn I shall be bowling alongto London. Somebody must tell her what has happened--or she'llplay the devil, and the whole business will burst up. I can'ttrust any of the people here. I'm done for, old chap, unless youhelp me."

Arnold lifted his hands in dismay. "It's the most dreadfulsituation, Geoffrey, I ever heard of in my life!"

Geoffrey thoroughly agreed with him. "Enough to knock a manover," he said, "isn't it? I'd give something for a drink ofbeer." He produced his everlasting pipe, from sheer force ofhabit. "Got a match?" he asked.

Arnold's mind was too preoccupied to notice the question.

"I hope you won't think I'm making light of your father'sillness," he said, earnestly. "But it seems to me--I must sayit--it seems to me that the poor girl has the first claim onyou."

Geoffrey looked at him in surly amazement.

"The first claim on me? Do you think I'm going to risk being cutout of my father's will? Not for the best woman that ever put ona petticoat!"

Arnold's admiration of his friend was the solidly-foundedadmiration of many years; admiration for a man who could row,box, wrestle, jump--above all, who could swim--as few other mencould perform those exercises in contemporary England. But thatanswer shook his faith. Only for the moment--unhappily forArnold, only for the moment.

"You know best," he returned, a little coldly. "What can I do?"

Geoffrey took his arm--roughly as he took every thing; but in acompanionable and confidential way.

"Go, like a good fellow, and tell her what has happened. We'llstart from here as if we were both going to the railway; and I'lldrop you at the foot-path, in the gig. You can get on to your ownplace afterward by the evening train. It puts you to noinconvenience, and it's doing the kind thing by an old friend.There's no risk of being found out. I'm to drive, remember!There's no servant with us, old boy, to notice, and tell tales."

Even Arnold began to see dimly by this time that he was likely topay his debt of obligation with interest--as Sir Patrick hadforetold.

"What am I to say to her?" he asked. "I'm bound to do all I cando to help you, and I will. But what am I to say?"

It was a natural question to put. It was not an easy question toanswer. What a man, under given muscular circumstances, could do,no person living knew better than Geoffrey Delamayn. Of what aman, under given social circumstances, could say, no personliving knew less.

"Say?" he repeated. "Look here! say I'm half distracted, and allthat. And--wait a bit--tell her to stop where she is till I writeto her."

Arnold hesitated. Absolutely ignorant of that low and limitedform of knowledge which is called "knowledge of the world," hisinbred delicacy of mind revealed to him the serious difficulty ofthe position which his friend was asking him to occupy as plainlyas if he was looking at it through the warily-gathered experienceof society of a man of twice his age.

"Can't you write to her now, Geoffrey?" he asked.

"What's the good of that?"

"Consider for a minute, and you will see. You have trusted mewith a very awkward secret. I may be wrong--I never was mixed upin such a matter before--but to present myself to this lady asyour messenger seems exposing her to a dreadful humiliation. Am Ito go and tell her to her face: 'I know what you are hiding fromthe knowledge of all the world;' and is she to be expected toendure it?"

"Bosh!" said Geoffrey. "They canendure a deal more than you think. I wish you had heard how shebullied me, in this very place. My good fellow, you don'tunderstand women. The grand secret, in dealing with a woman, isto take her as you take a cat, by the scruff of the neck--"

"I can't face her--unless you will help me by breaking the thingto her first. I'll stick at no sacrifice to serve you; but--hangit!--make allowances, Geoffrey, for the difficulty you areputting me in. I am almost a stranger; I don't know how MissSilvester may receive me, before I can open my lips."

Those last words touched the question on its practical side. Thematter-of-fact view of the difficulty was a view which Geoffreyinstantly recognized and understood.

"She has the devil's own temper," he said. "There's no denyingthat. Perhaps I'd better write. Have we time to go into thehouse?"

"No. The house is full of people, and we haven't a minute tospare. Write at once, and write here. I have got a pencil."

"What am I to write on?"

"Any thing--your brother's card."

Geoffrey took the pencil which Arnold offered to him, and lookedat the card. The lines his brother had written covered it. Therewas no room left. He felt in his pocket, and produced aletter--the letter which Anne had referred to at the interviewbetween them--the letter which she had written to insist on hisattending the lawn-party at Windygates.

"This will do," he said. "It's one of Anne's own letters to me.There's room on the fourth page. If I write," he added, turningsuddenly on Arnold, "you promise to take it to her? Your hand onthe bargain!"

He held out the hand which had saved Arnold's life in LisbonHarbor, and received Arnold's promise, in remembrance of thattime.

"All right, old fellow. I can tell you how to find the place aswe go along in the gig. By-the-by, there's one thing that'srather important. I'd better mention it while I think of it."

"What is that?"

"You mustn't present yourself at the inn in your own name; andyou mustn't ask for her by _her_ name."

"Who am I to ask for?"

"It's a little awkward. She has gone there as a married woman, incase they're particular about taking her in--"

"I understand. Go on."

"And she has planned to tell them (by way of making it all rightand straight for both of us, you know) that she expects herhusband to join her. If I had been able to go I should have askedat the door for 'my wife.' You are going in my place--"

"And I must ask at the door for 'my wife,' or I shall expose MissSilvester to unpleasant consequences?"

"You don't object?"

"Not I! I don't care what I say to the people of the inn. It'sthe meeting with Miss Silvester that I'm afraid of."

"I'll put that right for you--never fear!"

He went at once to the table and rapidly scribbled a fewlines--then stopped and considered. "Will that do?" he askedhimself. "No; I'd better say something spooney to quiet her." Heconsidered again, added a line, and brought his hand down on thetable with a cheery smack. "That will do the business! Read ityourself, Arnold--it's not so badly written."

Arnold read the note without appearing to share his friend'sfavorable opinion of it.

"This is rather short," he said.

"Have I time to make it longer?"

"Perhaps not. But let Miss Silvester see for herself that youhave no time to make it longer. The train starts in less thanhalf an hour. Put the time."

"Oh, all right! and the date too, if you like."

He had just added the desired words and figures, and had giventhe revised letter to Arnold, when Sir Patrick returned toannounce that the gig was waiting.

"Come!" he said. "You haven't a moment to lose!"

Geoffrey started to his feet. Arnold hesitated.

"I must see Blanche!" he pleaded. "I can't leave Blanche withoutsaying good-by. Where is she?"

Sir Patrick pointed to the steps, with a smile. Blanche hadfollowed him from the house. Arnold ran out to her instantly.

"Going?" she said, a little sadly.

"I shall be back in two days," Arnold whispered. "It's all right!Sir Patrick consents."

She held him fast by the arm. The hurried parting before otherpeople seemed to be not a parting to Blanche's taste.

"You will lose the train!" cried Sir Patrick.

Geoffrey seized Arnold by the arm which Blanche was holding, andtore him--literally tore him--away. The two were out of sight, inthe shrubbery, before Blanche's indignation found words, andaddressed itself to her uncle.

"Why is that brute going away with Mr. Brinkworth?" she asked.

"Mr. Delamayn is called to London by his father's illness,"replied Sir Patrick. "You don't like him?"

"I hate him!"

Sir Patrick reflected a little.

"She is a young girl of eighteen," he thought to himself. "And Iam an old man of seventy. Curious, that we should agree about anything. More than curious that we should agree in disliking Mr.Delamayn."

He roused himself, and looked again at Blanche. She was seated atthe table, with her head on her hand; absent, and out ofspirits--thinking of Arnold, and set, with the future all smoothbefore them, not thinking happily.

"Why, Blanche! Blanche!" cried Sir Patrick, "one would think hehad gone for a voyage round the world. You silly child! he willbe back again the day after to-morrow."

"I wish he hadn't gone with that man!" said Blanche. "I wish hehadn't got that man for a friend!"

"There! there! the man was rude enough I own. Never mind! he willleave the man at the second station. Come back to the ball-roomwith me. Dance it off, my dear--dance it off!"

"No," returned Blanche. "I'm in no humor for dancing. I shall goup stairs, and talk about it to Anne."

"You will do nothing of the sort!" said a third voice, suddenlyjoining in the conversation.

Both uncle and niece looked up, and found Lady Lundie at the topof the summer-house steps.

"I forbid you to mention that woman's name again in my hearing,"pursued her ladyship. "Sir Patrick! I warned you (if youremember?) that the matter of the governess was not a matter tobe trifled with. My worst anticipations are realized. MissSilvester has left the house!"