an his disgust with the
arrangements of the universe. Ellen Berstoun was to have paid them
another visit, but for some reason she put it off; and at this decision
he was plunged for forty-eight consecutive hours into a frenzy,
alternately of relief and despair, which left him at last more
lackadaisical than ever. A few days after his father's momentous
interview with Andrew, he was roused to fresh anguish by the junior
partner's departure to spend a week-end at Berstoun Castle, and his
state of mind now became so unbearable that he abruptly announced to
his sister--

"I can't stick this any longer! I'm going up to town."

"What for?" she asked.

"For a bust," he answered desperately. "I'm going to try to--to--to
forget."

And the poor youth strode hurriedly out of the room to examine the state
of his silk hat and his finances.

Jean devoutly wished she too could fly to London! Like a dutiful girl,
she had returned, at her father's peremptory bidding, two unopened
letters received from that city. Frank knew his address and forwarded
them for her. Once or twice after that he himself received a letter in a
hand suspiciously resembling the writing on the unbroken envelopes, and
it certainly was a fact that on each of these occasions the erring pair
were closeted for long together, and that Jean's spirits rose a little
for a few hours afterwards. But they soon sank again.

After Frank had announced his desperate resolution she sat alone
for some time in the drawing-room. Everybody else was out, and the
house seemed prodigiously silent and vast. At last she heard a little
noise, which presently took the form of footsteps bounding upstairs,
accompanied by a cheerful tuneless whistling. The door was flung
open, and her father entered.

It was only at that moment that Jean realized he was a curiously altered
man. He was dressed in brown tweeds and a light waistcoat; his face was
flushed, and a smile danced in his eyes.

"I've been for a bicycle ride," he announced.

She could hardly believe her ears.

"You--on a bicycle?" she gasped; for Mr. Walkingshaw had been born long
before bicycles.

"Yes; I've had a couple of lessons--only two, and I went for a six-mile
ride all alone to-day!"

"Then weren't you at the office?"

"In the morning; but one gets no exercise in that beastly office. I need
a lot nowadays."

He threw himself into a chair and a smile broke over his face, in which,
to her further bewilderment,