er head.
Just walk back with me to meet Annie Forest, and to get your letter.
You know Annie Forest, don't you?"

"I have met her."

"Well, she's waiting close to the Carlton Club for us both; and we can't
leave her there, you know; come quickly."

The Squire turned.

His step was slow. The look of depression on his face was painful; his
grizzled hair was nearly white, and his once keen, hawk-like blue eyes
were now dim and dull. Antonia had never seen him before, but Annie
started when he held out his hand to her.

He walked in almost silence back with the two girls, and in a little
more than half an hour, Antonia had the pleasure of introducing him to
her mother and Nora, who were enjoying afternoon tea together in great
contentment and peace of mind. Nora uttered a little shriek when she saw
her father. He took her in his arms and kissed her tenderly. Annie did
not follow the Squire into the drawing-room.

"Come, mother," said Antonia, going up to her parent.

"Where?" asked Mrs. Bernard Temple in astonishment.

"Out of the room--come."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE LION AND MOUSE.

No one could be in a more terrible state of complete collapse than poor
Mr. Lorrimer. The blow he had most dreaded had overtaken him. He had
been as plucky an English gentleman as ever walked. As true-hearted and
affectionate a husband and father, as kind and considerate a
landlord--as honourable as man could be in all his dealings--a keen
sportsman, a lover of horses--in short, an ideal squire of the old
school; but the Towers had been his backbone; now that circumstances for
which he was scarcely to blame deprived him of the home of his fathers,
he found himself unable to stand up against the blow. He had made a
gallant fight up to the last moment, but when he saw plainly that the
tide had set in dead against him, he ceased to fight and allowed himself
to drift. He made up his mind that his last memory of the Towers should
be that evening when the old ball-room was full of light and movement,
and when two little fairy-like figures had flitted across the lawn to
greet him. That fairy and that brownie had comforted him on that night
of keen desolation, and their memory lingered with him still. He lived
in cheap lodgings near his club, ate what was put before him, read
nothing, moped away the long hours, and was fast reaching a stage when
serious breakdown of some sort or other was imminent. He desired all
letters to be sent