de,' as Max says, and let Dudley come down or stay away as he
likes, and the matter will come quite right one way or the other, and
you will find there was really nothing for you to trouble your dear old
head about, after all."

There was really some excellence in the girl's suggestion; and her
father, after much grumbling, gave a half consent to it. He was forced
to admit to himself that there was some grounds for Dudley's agitation
on reading the paragraph concerning the disappearance of Edward Jacobs,
since he had been interesting himself of late in that person's history.
But it was the degree of the young man's agitation which had seemed
morbid. Mr. Wedmore found it difficult to understand why a mere
suggestion of the man's disappearance--if it were indeed _the_
man--should affect Dudley so deeply. And the idea of incipient insanity
in young Horne grew stronger than ever in Mr. Wedmore's mind.

Now, Doreen was by no means so sanguine as she pretended to be. She was
one of those high-spirited, lively girls who find it easy to hide from
others any troubles which may be gnawing at their heart. Such a nature
has an elasticity which enables it to throw off its cares for a time,
when in the society of others, only to brood over them in hours of
loneliness.

Nobody in the house knew--what, however, shrewd Queenie half guessed
that Doreen had many an anxious hour, many a secret fit of crying, on
account of the change in Dudley's manner toward her. The brilliant,
proud-hearted girl was more deeply attached to him than anybody
suspected. If any remark was made by outsiders as to the comparative
rarity of the young barrister's visits during the past two months, it
was always accompanied by the comment that Miss Wedmore would not be
long in consoling herself.

And everybody knew that the curate, the Rev. Lisle Lindsay, was
hungering to step into Dudley's shoes.

He was not quite to be despised as a rival, this "snowy-banded,
dilettant, delicate-handed priest." In the first place, he was a really
nice, honorable young fellow, with no much worse faults than a
pedantically correct pronunciation of the unaccented vowels; in the
second place, he was considerably taller than the race of curates
usually runs; and in the third place, he had a handsome allowance from
his mother, and "expectations" on a very grand scale indeed. Miss
Wedmore, if she were to decide in his favor, might well aspire to be the
wife of a bishop some day.