tra-tragic. Positively, you make my blood
run cold. Don't stand staring at me in that awful attitude, but tell
me, as briefly as you can, what I have done."

He laughs lightly.

Dorian regards him fixedly. Has he wronged him? Has instinct played
him false?

"Where is Ruth Annersley?" he asks, awkwardly, as though getting rid
of the question at any price and without preamble. He has still his
hand upon his brother's arm, and his eyes upon his face.

"Ruth Annersley?" reiterates Horace, the most perfect amazement in his
tone. If purposely done, the surprise is very excellent indeed. "Why?
What has happened to her?"

"Have you heard nothing?"

"My dear fellow, how could I? I have not been near Pullingham for a
full month; and its small gossips fail to interest our big city. What
has happened?"

"The girl has left her home; has not been heard of since last Tuesday.
They fear she has wilfully flung up happiness and honor to
gain--misery."

"What a charitable place is a small village!" says Horace, with a
shrug. "Why should the estimable Pullinghamites imagine so much evil?
Perhaps, finding life in that stagnate hole unendurable, Ruth threw up
the whole concern, and is now seeking a subsistence honorably.
Perhaps, too, she has married. Perhaps----"

"Why do you not suppose her dead?" says Dorian, tapping the table with
his forefinger, his eyes fixed moodily on the pattern of the
maroon-colored cloth. "All such speculations are equally absurd. I
hardly came to London to listen to such vain imaginings."

"Then--I think I barely understand you," says Horace, amicably; "you
came because----?"

"Because I fancied I had here the best chance of hearing about her,"
interrupts Dorian, bluntly, losing patience a little.

"How fearfully you blunder!" returns Horace, still quite calmly,--nay,
in even a tone that might be called amused. "If you mean that I have
had anything to do with her vamoose, I beg to say your imagination has
run wild. You can search the place if you like. The old lady who
attends to my wants will probably express some faint disapprobation
when you invade the sanctity of her chamber, but beyond that no
unpleasantness need be anticipated. This is her favorite hour for
imbibing brandy--_my_ brandy, you will understand (she takes it merely
as a tonic, being afflicted--as she tells me--with what she is pleased
to term 'nightly trimbles'): so if, in the course of your wanderings,
you chance to meet her, a