t you can say can make it at all worse than it
is."

"Dear Will, I wish I could make it better."

"But you can't. Nobody can make it either better or worse. I promised
her once before that I would go to her when she might be in trouble,
and I will be as good as my word. I said I would be a brother to
her;--and so I will. So help me God, I will!" Then he rushed out of
the room, striding through the door as though he would knock it down,
and hurried up-stairs to his own chamber. When there he stripped
himself of his hunting things, and dressed himself again with all
the expedition in his power; and then he threw a heap of clothes
into a large portmanteau, and set himself to work packing as though
everything in the world were to depend upon his catching a certain
train. And he went to a locked drawer, and taking out a cheque-book,
folded it up and put it into his pocket. Then he rang the bell
violently; and as he was locking the portmanteau, pressing down the
lid with all his weight and all his strength, he ordered that a
certain mare should be put into a certain dog-cart, and that somebody
might be ready to drive over with him to the Downham Station. Within
twenty minutes of the time of his rushing up-stairs he appeared again
before his sister with a great-coat on, and a railway rug hanging
over his arm. "Do you mean that you are going to-day?" said she.

"Yes. I'll catch the 11.40 up-train at Downham. What's the good of
going unless I go at once? If I can be of any use it will be at the
first. It may be that she will have nobody there to do anything for
her."

"There is the clergyman, and Colonel Askerton,--even if Captain
Aylmer has not gone down."

"The clergyman and Colonel Askerton are nothing to her. And if that
man is there I can come back again."

"You will not quarrel with him?"

"Why should I quarrel with him? What is there to quarrel about? I'm
not such a fool as to quarrel with a man because I hate him. If he
is there I shall see her for a minute or two, and then I shall come
back."

"I know it is no good my trying to dissuade you."

"None on earth. If you knew it all you would not try to dissuade me.
Before I thought of asking her to be my wife,--and yet I thought of
that very soon;--but before I ever thought of that, I told her that
when she wanted a brother's help I would give it her. Of course I was
thinking of the property,--that she shouldn't be turned out of her
father's house like a beggar