r arm held away the pipe he had just taken
from his lips, he asked if they would give him a cup of tea, the whole
harbour was so full of such beastly, staring cads that there was no peace
there. One ought to give such places a wide berth at Whitsuntide.

'I wonder you did not,' said Ida, as she hastened to compound the tea.

'Forgot it,' he lazily droned, 'forgot it. Attractions, you know,' and,
as she brought the cup to the window, with a lump of sugar in the tongs,
'when sugar fingers are--' and the speech ended in a demonstration at the
fingers that made Ida laugh, blush, and say, 'Oh, for shame, Mr. Brady!'

'You had better come in, Mr. Brady,' called Mrs. Morton. 'You can't
drink it comfortably there, and you'll be upsetting it. We are down in
the dining-room to-day, because--'

The cause, necessary to her gentility, was lost, as Ida proceeded to let
him in at the front door, and he presently deposited himself on the sofa,
grumbling complacently at the bore of holidays, especially bank holidays.
His crew would have been ready to strike, he declared, if he had taken
them out of harbour, or he would have asked the ladies to come on a
cruise out of the way of it all.

'Why, thank you very much, Mr. Brady, but, really in my poor brother,
Lord Northmoor's state, I don't know that it would be etiquette.'

'Ah, yes. By the bye, how's the governor?'

'Very sad, strength failing. I hardly expect to hear he is alive
to-morrow,' and Mrs. Morton's handkerchief was raised.

'Oh ay, sad enough, you know! I say, will it make any difference to
you?'

'My poor, dear brother! Well, it ought, you know. Indeed it would if it
had not been for that dear little boy. My poor Herbert!'

'It must have been an awful sell for him.'

'Yes,' said Ida, 'and some people think there was something very odd
about it all--the child being born out in the Dolomites, with nobody
there!'

'Don't, Ida, I can't have you talk so,' protested her mother.

'Supposititious, by all that's lucky! I should strangle him!' and Mr.
Brady put back his head and laughed a loud and hearty laugh, by no means
elegant, but without much sound of truculent intentions.

CHAPTER XXXII
A SHOCK

It was on the Thursday of Whitsun-week when Lady Adela and Bertha came
down from their visit of inquiry, a little more hopeful than on the
previous day, though they could not yet say that recovery was setting in.

But a great shock awaited them. The