"That little girl at the vicarage isn't bad to look at," says Horace,
idly, beating a tattoo on the window-pane.

"Miss Broughton? I should call her very good to look at," says Dorian,
for the first time making the discovery that there may be moments when
it would be a sure and certain joy to kick even one's own brother.

"Here is Arthur," says Horace, presently, drawing himself up briskly
from his lounging position. "A little of him goes a long way; and I
should say, judging from the expression of his lips, that he is in his
moodiest mood to day. You may interview him, Dorian: I feel myself
unequal to the task. Give him my love and a kiss, and say I have gone
for a ramble in the innocent woods."

He leaves the room, and, crossing the halls, makes his way into the
open air through the conservatory; while Lord Sartoris, entering by
the hall door, and being directed by a servant, goes on to Dorian's
den.

He is looking fagged and care-worn, and has about him that look of
extreme lassitude that belongs to those to whom sleep overnight has
been a stranger. Strong and painful doubts of Dorian's honesty of
purpose had kept him wakeful, and driven him now down from his own
home to Sartoris.

A strange longing to see his favorite nephew again, to look upon the
face he had always deemed so true, to hear the voice he loves best on
earth, had taken possession of him; yet now he finds himself
confronting Dorian with scarcely a word to say to him.

"I hardly hoped to find you at home," he says, with an effort.

"What a very flattering speech! Was that why you came? Sit here,
Arthur: you will find it much more comfortable."

He pushes towards him the cosily-cushioned chair in which Horace had
been sitting a minute ago.

"Do I look tired enough to require this?" says Sartoris, sinking,
however, very willingly into the chair's embrace. As he does so,
something lying on the ground (that has escaped Dorian's notice)
attracts him.

"What is this?" he asks, stooping to pick it up.

It is a lace handkerchief, of delicate and exquisite workmanship, with
some letters embroidered in one corner.

"You have been receiving gentle visitors very early," says Lord
Sartoris, turning the pretty thing round and round curiously.

"Not unless you can count Horace as one," says Dorian, with a light
laugh. "How on earth did that come here?" Stooping, he, too, examines
minutely the fragile piece of lace and cambric his uncle is still
hold