a quarrel; I remember it now. An English officer was here, and played
with him, and was beaten. 'Twas the only time I ever knew Callow win a
game; but he lost his temper this time, and won. Then Milord called him
a cheat, and without a word Monsieur Callow knocked him down. The
police came, and Monsieur Callow knocked _him_ down. Then he put on his
hat and walked, and I never saw him more. He always said he would go to
sea, and I think he would keep his word. Ah, a telegram! 'Tis long
since telegrams came to my hotel. _Helas_! not for me; for you,
Monsieur."

It was from Armstrong.

"Shall be with you, ten to-morrow morning."

The three weeks which had passed at Maxfield had been terrible.

The discovery of Captain Oliphant's body at the foot of the cliff, with
the clear traces of a struggle on the brink above, had created a
profound sensation at Maxfield and the country round.

For a day the air was full of wild conjectures of suicide, incident,
foul play; until the last-named theory was finally confirmed by the
discovery in the tightly-clenched hand of the dead man of a fragment of
a promissory note bearing the signature of Robert Ratman.

To the tutor, as he held the paper in his hand, everything became
startlingly clear. This was the last act of a tragedy which had been
going on for months; and now that the curtain had abruptly fallen, he
could not help, in the midst of this horror, owning to a sense of
thankfulness, for the sake of others, that the troubled career of his
rival and enemy had stopped short at a point beyond which nothing but
disgrace and scandal and misery awaited it.

From that disgrace it was his business now, by every means in his power,
to shield the innocent brother and sisters who still honoured the dead
man as their father.

Many a grievous task had been thrown upon the tutor in his day, but none
cost him more effort than this, of breaking to the children of his enemy
the news of their father's death. But he went through it manfully and
ably.

Rosalind, on whom the blow fell hardest, because on her spirit the
burden of her father's cares had lain heaviest, rose, with a heroine's
courage, to the occasion, and earned the tutor's boundless gratitude by
making his task easy. She said little; she understood everything. She
remembered nothing but the father's love--his old caresses and
confidences and kindnesses. The tears she shed blotted out all the
anxieties and misgivi