ndon on purpose at
your wish a week ago."

"Y-yes."

"And I don't think he would care to come here. No doubt he has his own
friends. You must remember a man like that is poor. It would be putting
him to expense."

Michael looked down at the sleeping puppy. He did not answer.

Wentworth was beginning to fear that his brother had an ungrateful,
callous nature. Was Michael so self-absorbed--egotism revolted
Wentworth--that he would _never_ ask to see Wentworth's future wife, the
woman who had shown such unceasing, such tender interest in Michael
himself.

"I hoped there was someone else, someone very dear to me, and a devoted
friend of yours, whom you might like to see again."

Wentworth spoke with deliberation.

"I could send him a cheque. He need not be at any expense," said Michael
in a low voice. His exhausted mind, slower to move than ever, had not
left the subject of Doctor Filippi. His brother's last remark had not
penetrated to it.

Wentworth became scarlet. He made an impatient movement. Then part of
the sense of his brother's last words tardily reached Michael's blurred
faculties.

"An old friend of mine," he said, vaguely flurried. "What old friend?"

"Fay," said Wentworth, biting his lip. "Have you forgotten Fay
_entirely_? How she tried to save you, how she grieved for you? Her
great goodness to you? And what she is to _me_!"

"No," said Michael. "No. I don't forget. Her goodness to me. How she
tried to save me. Just so. Just so. I don't forget."

"Won't you see her? She and Magdalen are driving over here this morning.
You need not see Magdalen unless you like."

"I should like. She is going to be married, too, isn't she? I feel as if
I had heard someone say so."

"Yes, to Lossiemouth. You remember him as Everard Constable, a touchy,
ill-conditioned, cantankerous brute if ever there was one, who does not
care a straw for anyone but himself. I can't think what she sees in him.
But an Earl's an Earl. I always forget that. I have lived so much apart
from the world and its sordid motives and love of wealth and rank that
it is always a shock and a surprise when I come in contact with its way
of looking at things. I never liked Magdalen. I always considered her
superficial. But I never thought her mercenary--till now. But Fay----"

"I will see her, too," said Michael. "Yes, of course. I somehow thought
of Fay as--as--but my mind gets so confused--as at a great distance,
quite removed all this tim