shouldn't! There's only a man and his wife, a sort of charwoman who
cleans and cooks, and the man is supposed to look after Uncle Rad; but
he doesn't do it, for he is half seas over most of the time."

"Good God!" murmured Colonel Harris.

"They have shut up all the rooms, except the library where Uncle Rad
and Philip have their meals when they are at home. But they lunch and
dine at their club mostly."

"What club do they go to? I called in at the Atheneum last night,
thinking to find Radclyffe there, but the hall porter told me that he
never went there now."

"No. He and Philip have joined some new club in Shaftesbury
Avenue--The Veterans' I think it is called."

"Some low, mixed-up kind of place! Old Radclyffe must be out of his
senses!"

"He likes it, so he tells me, because people don't come and bother him
there."

"I should think not indeed. I wouldn't set foot in such a place."

"He goes there most evenings, and so does Philip--and it's so bad for
Uncle Rad to be out late these foggy nights."

"You ought to make an effort and stop it, Luke."

"I have made many efforts, sir. But, as a matter of fact, I had made
up my mind to make a final one to-night. Uncle Rad ought to go abroad,
and I thought I would try to impress this on Philip. He can't be a bad
man."

"Oh! can't he?" was Colonel Harris's muttered comment.

"At any rate, if I have no influence, he has, and he must exert it and
get Uncle Rad down to Algeciras or anywhere he likes so long as it is
well south."

Luke paused awhile, his face flushed with this expression of
determination which must have caused his pride many a bitter pang.
Then he resumed more quietly:

"It's rather humiliating, isn't it, to go to that man as a
suppliant?"

"Don't go as a suppliant, my boy. You must insist on your uncle being
properly looked after."

Colonel Harris thought all that sort of thing so easy. One always does
before one has had a genuine tussle with the unpleasant realities of
life; to the good country squire with an assured position, an assured
income, assured influence, it seemed very easy indeed to insist. He
himself never had to insist; things occurred round him and at his
word, as it were, of themselves.

But Louisa, knowing how matters stood, made no suggestion. She knew
that Luke would do his best, but that that best was of little avail
now; as Philip de Mountford arranged so it would all come about.

Friends and well-wishers could but pr