as playing a game with Queenie, his younger
sister, let her in, and cried out at sight of her white face:

"Hello! Doreen, what's up? Had a row with Dudley? Or what?"

"I have had no 'row' with any one," answered the girl, very quietly.
"But--you must all know all about it presently, so you may as well hear
it at once--Dudley has gone away."

"What?"

Max stopped in the act of trying for a carom, and stared at his sister.

"Why, he only came when I did, ten minutes ago!"

"He's gone, I tell you!" repeated Doreen, stamping her foot. "And--and
listen, Max, I'm frightened about him! He's got something on his mind.
When he went away, I saw him; I was standing by the gate; he looked
so--so _dreadful_ that I didn't dare to speak to him. _I!_ Think of
that!"

"Had papa been speaking to him?" put in the shrewd younger sister, who
was chalking her cue at the other end of the room.

The younger sister always sees most of the game.

"Ye--es, but--I don't know--I hardly think it was that," answered Doreen
quickly. "At any rate, Max, I want you to do this for me; I want you to
go up to town to-morrow and see him. I shan't rest until I know
he's--he's all right--after what I saw of his face and the look on it.
Now, you will do this, won't you, won't you? Without saying anything to
anybody, mind. Queenie, you can hold your tongue, too. Now, Max, there's
a dear, you'll do it, won't you?"

Max told her that she was "off her head," that he could do no good, and
so on. But he ended in giving way to the will of his handsome sister,
whom he adored.

Max Wedmore was a good-looking fellow of five-and-twenty, with a
reputation as a ne'er-do-weel, which, perhaps, he hardly deserved. His
father had a great idea of bringing the young man up to some useful
calling to keep him out of mischief. Not very terrible mischief, for the
most part: only the result of too much leisure and too much money in
inexperienced hands. The upshot of this difference of opinion between
father and son was that while Mr. Wedmore was always finding mercantile
situations for his son, Max was always taking care to be thrown out of
them after a few weeks, and taking a rest which was by no means well
earned.

This errand of his sister's was by no means unwelcome to him, since it
took him back to town, where he could amuse himself better than he could
in the country.

So, on the following morning, he found some sort of excuse to take him
up, and started on his