here--he, too,
has lost.'

Mr. Fishwick, standing, dogged and downcast, by the window, did not say
what he had lost, but his thoughts went to his old mother at Wallingford
and the empty stocking, and the weekly letters he had sent her for a
month past, letters full of his golden prospects, and the great case of
Soane _v_. Soane, and the grand things that were to come of it. What a
home-coming was now in store for him, his last guinea spent, his hopes
wrecked, and Wallingford to be faced!

There was a brief silence. Mrs. Masterson sobbed querulously, or now and
again uttered a wailing complaint: the other two stood sank in bitter
retrospect. Presently, 'What must we do?' Julia asked in a faint voice.'
I mean, what step must we take? Will you let them know?'

'I will see them,' Mr. Fishwick answered, wincing at the note of pain in
her voice. 'I--I was sent for this morning, for twelve o'clock. It is a
quarter to eleven now.'

She looked at him, startled, a spot of red in each cheek. 'We must go
away,' she said hurriedly, 'while we have money. Can we do better than
return to Oxford?'

The attorney felt sure that at the worst Sir George would do something
for her: that Mrs. Masterson need not lament for her fifty pounds. But
he had the delicacy to ignore this. 'I don't know,' he said mournfully.
'I dare not advise. You'd be sorry, Miss Julia--any one would be sorry
who knew what I have gone through. I've suffered--I can't tell you what
I have suffered--the last twenty-four hours! I shall never have any
opinion of myself again. Never!'

Julia sighed. 'We must cut a month out of our lives,' she murmured. But
it was something else she meant--a month out of her heart!

CHAPTER XXXV

DORMITAT HOMERUS

If Julia's return in the middle of the night balked the curiosity of
some who would fain have had her set down at the door that they might
enjoy her confusion as she passed through the portico, it had the
advantage, appreciated by others, of leaving room for conjecture. Before
breakfast her return was known from, one end of the Castle Inn to the
other; within half an hour a score had private information. Sir George
had brought her back, after marrying her at Salisbury. The attorney had
brought her back, and both were in custody, charged with stealing Sir
George's title-deeds. Mr. Thomasson had brought her back; he had wedded
her at Calne, the reverend gentleman himself performing the ceremony
with a curtain-ring at