ve come into
my very house to intrigue with my sister?"

My friend put his two hands to his face. "Oh, oh, oh!" he groaned while
Miss Searle crossed rapidly and dropped on her knees at his side.

"Go to bed, you fool!" shrieked her brother.

"Dear cousin," she said, "it's cruel you're to have so to think of us!"

"Oh I shall think of YOU as you'd like!" He laid a hand on her head.

"I believe you've done nothing wrong," she brought bravely out.

"I've done what I could," Mr. Searle went on--"but it's arrant folly to
pretend to friendship when this abomination lies between us. You were
welcome to my meat and my wine, but I wonder you could swallow them. The
sight spoiled MY appetite!" cried the master of Lackley with a laugh.
"Proceed with your trumpery case! My people in London are instructed and
prepared."

"I shouldn't wonder if your case had improved a good deal since you gave
it up," I was moved to observe to Searle.

"Oho! you don't feign ignorance then?" and our insane entertainer shook
his shining head at me. "It's very kind of you to give it up! Perhaps
you'll also give up my sister!"

Searle sat staring in distress at his adversary. "Ah miserable man--I
thought we had become such beautiful friends."

"Boh, you hypocrite!" screamed our host.

Searle seemed not to hear him. "Am I seriously expected," he slowly and
painfully pursued, "to defend myself against the accusation of any real
indelicacy--to prove I've done nothing underhand or impudent? Think what
you please!" And he rose, with an effort, to his feet. "I know what YOU
think!" he added to Miss Searle.

The wheels of the carriage resounded on the gravel, and at the same
moment a footman descended with our two portmanteaux. Mr. Tottenham
followed him with our hats and coats.

"Good God," our host broke out again, "you're not going away?"--an
ejaculation that, after all that had happened, had the grandest
comicality. "Bless my soul," he then remarked as artlessly, "of course
you're going!"

"It's perhaps well," said Miss Searle with a great effort, inexpressibly
touching in one for whom great efforts were visibly new and strange,
"that I should tell you what my poor little note contained."

"That matter of your note, madam," her brother interrupted, "you and I
will settle together!"

"Let me imagine all sorts of kind things!" Searle beautifully pleaded.

"Ah too much has been imagined!" she answered simply. "It was only a
word of warning