tone
quarreled with Mr. Clare. "One of these days you'll wish you hadn't laid
that wager," said the cynic philosopher. "One of these days I shall have
the blessed satisfaction of pocketing your guinea," cried the sanguine
friend. Two years had then passed since Frank's departure. In one year
more results asserted themselves, and settled the question.

Two days after Mr. Vanstone's return from London, he was called away
from the breakfast-table before he had found time enough to look over
his letters, delivered by the morning's post. Thrusting them into one
of the pockets of his shooting-jacket, he took the letters out again,
at one grasp, to read them when occasion served, later in the day.
The grasp included the whole correspondence, with one exception--that
exception being a final report from the civil engineer, which notified
the termination of the connection between his pupil and himself, and the
immediate return of Frank to his father's house.

While this important announcement lay unsuspected in Mr. Vanstone's
pocket, the object of it was traveling home, as fast as railways could
take him. At half-past ten at night, while Mr. Clare was sitting in
studious solitude over his books and his green tea, with his favorite
black cat to keep him company, he heard footsteps in the passage--the
door opened--and Frank stood before him.

Ordinary men would have been astonished. But the philosopher's composure
was not to be shaken by any such trifle as the unexpected return of his
eldest son. He could not have looked up more calmly from his learned
volume if Frank had been absent for three minutes instead of three
years.

"Exactly what I predicted," said Mr. Clare. "Don't interrupt me by
making explanations; and don't frighten the cat. If there is anything
to eat in the kitchen, get it and go to bed. You can walk over to
Combe-Raven tomorrow and give this message from me to Mr. Vanstone:
'Father's compliments, sir, and I have come back upon your hands like a
bad shilling, as he always said I should. He keeps his own guinea, and
takes your five; and he hopes you'll mind what he says to you another
time.' That is the message. Shut the door after you. Good-night."

Under these unfavorable auspices, Mr. Francis Clare made his appearance
the next morning in the grounds at Combe-Raven; and, something doubtful
of the reception that might await him, slowly approached the precincts
of the house.

It was not wonderful that Magdale