r short laugh. "To see you, I
fancy. By the by, I met Mrs. Branscombe on my way here. She didn't
look particularly happy."

"No." Clarissa's eyes grow sad. "After all, that marriage was a
terrible mistake, and it seemed such a satisfactory one. Do you know,"
in a half-frightened tone, "I begin to think they hate each other?"

"They don't seem to hit it off very well, certainly," says Sir James,
moodily. "But I believe there is something more on Branscombe's mind
than his domestic worries: I am afraid he is getting into trouble over
the farm, and that, and nothing hits a man like want of money. That
Sawyer is a very slippery fellow, in my opinion: and of late Dorian
has neglected everything and taken no interest in his land, and, in
fact, lets everything go without question."

"I have no patience with Georgie," says Clarissa, indignantly. "She is
positively breaking his heart."

"She is unhappy, poor little thing," says Scrope, who cannot find it
in his heart to condemn the woman who has just condemned Horace
Branscombe.

"It is her own fault if she is. I know few people so lovable as
Dorian. And now to think he has another trouble makes me wretched. I
do hope you are wrong about Sawyer."

"I don't think I am," says Scrope; and time justifies his doubt of
Dorian's steward.

* * * * *

"SARTORIS, Tuesday, four o'clock.

"DEAR SCROPE,--

"Come up to me at _once_, if possible. Everything here is in
a deplorable state. You have heard, of course, that Sawyer
bolted last night; but perhaps you have _not_ heard that he
has left things in a ruinous state. I must see you with as
little delay as you can manage. Come straight to the library,
where you will find me alone.

"Yours ever,

"D. B."

Sir James, who is sitting in his sister's room, starts to his feet on
reading this letter.

"Patience, I must go at once to Sartoris," he says, looking pale and
distressed.

"To see that mad boy?"

"To see Dorian Branscombe."

"That is quite the same thing. You don't call him sane, do you? To
marry that chit of a girl without a grain of common sense in her silly
head, just because her eyes were blue and her hair yellow, forsooth.
And then to go and get mixed up with that Annersley affair--"

"My dear Patience!"

"Well, why not? Why sh