ying?"

"Lord knows how long."

"Poor Fanny. You can't get them to go, can you?"

"I've thought of things. I've told Will he must have an illness."

"And will he?"

"Not he. He says, as I asked them, I ought to have the illness. But
if I did she'd stay and nurse me. Besides, if we ousted the whole
lot to-morrow, _they'll_ meet again. He'll see to that; and so will
Philippa."

There was a long pause.

"I want _you_ to do it. I want you to tell her."

"Good Lord, what am I to tell her?"

"Tell her it isn't nice; tell her it isn't worth while; tell her
Furny isn't fair game; tell her anything you can think of that'll
stop her."

"I don't see myself----"

"I do. She won't listen to anybody but you."

"Why me?"

"She respects you."

"I doubt it. Why should she?"

"Because you've never made yourself a spectacle of folly. You've
never told her you're in love with her."

"But I'm not," said poor Straker.

"She doesn't know that. And if she did she'd respect you all the
more."

"Dear Fanny, I'd do a great deal for you, but I can't do that. I
can't, really. It wouldn't be a bit of good."

"You could speak," Fanny said, "to Furny."

"I couldn't."

"Why _not_?" she cried, in desperation.

"Because, if I did, I should have to assume things--things that you
cannot decently assume. I can't speak to him. Not, that is, unless
he speaks to me."

VIII

He did speak to him that very night.

It was after ten o'clock, and Straker, who ought to have been in the
drawing-room playing bridge, or in the billiard-room playing
billiards, or in the smoking-room talking to Brocklebank--Straker,
who ought to have known better, had sneaked into the library to have
a look at a brief he'd just got. He ought to have known better, for
he knew, everybody knew, that after ten o'clock the library at
Amberley was set apart as a refuge for any two persons who desired
uninterrupted communion with each other. He himself, in the library
at Amberley--but that was more than two years ago, so far before
Philippa's time that he did not associate her with the library at
Amberley. He only knew that Furnival had spent a good deal of time
in it with Nora Viveash, and poor Nora was gone. It was poor Nora's
departure, in fact, that made him feel that the library was now open
to him.

Now the library at Amberley was fitted, as a library should be, with
a silent door, a door with an inaudible latch and pneumatic hinges.
It shut itself