tell you that?"

"Yes, between ourselves, he did. He wouldn't tell me what, but said he
knew what he was talking about, and that I'd better tell you that you
and all of us would be very sorry before long if we had anything to do
with the Medlands."

"What the deuce does he mean?" asked Dick fretfully.

"Well, you know the sort of gossip that's about. Compare that with what
Kilshaw said."

"What gossip?"

"Nonsense! You know well enough. It's impossible to live here without
noticing that everybody thinks there's something wrong. I believe
Kilshaw knows what it is, and, what's more, that he means to have it out
some day. However that may be, rumours of the sort there are about are
by themselves enough to stop any wise man."

"Old wives' scandal, I expect."

"Perhaps: perhaps not. Anyhow, I'd rather have no scandal, old wives' or
any other, about my wife's family."

"I'm awfully fond of her," said Dick.

"Well, as I said, it's your look-out. I don't know what Mary'll say,
and--you've only got six hundred a year of your own, Dick."

"It seems to me we're in the deuce of a hurry--" began Dick feebly, but
his brother interrupted him.

"Come, Dick, do you suppose Kilshaw would have come to me, if he hadn't
thought the matter serious? It wasn't a very pleasant interview for him.
I expect you've been making the pace pretty warm."

Dick did not venture on a denial. He shifted about uneasily in his seat,
and lit a cigarette with elaborate care.

"I don't want to be disagreeable," pursued the Governor, "but both for
your sake and mine--not to speak of the girl's--I won't have anything
that looks like trifling with her. You must make up your mind; you must
go on, or you must drop it."

"How the devil can I drop it? I'm bound to meet her two or three times a
week, and I can't cut her."

"You needn't flirt with her."

"Oh, needn't I? That's all you know about it."

The Governor was not offended by this rudeness.

"Then," he said, "if you don't mean to go on----"

"Who said I didn't?"

"Do you?"

Dick was driven into a corner. He asked why life was so ill-arranged,
why he was poor, why a man might not look at a girl without proposing to
her, why everybody was always so down on him, why people chattered so
maliciously, why he was such a miserable devil, and many other
questions. His brother relentlessly repeated his "Do you?" and at last
Dick, red in the face, and with every sign of wholesome shame, blurted