e stood in perplexity
his little dog Yelpie, who had followed him into the room, suddenly
becoming aware of the state of things, dashed forward with a short sharp
bark.

"Yelpie--Yelpie," cried Basil; "be quiet, Yelpie. It's only Herr
Wildermann. Don't you know him, Yelpie? What a stupid you are!"

He went on talking fast to give the young German time to recover
himself, for, on hearing Basil's voice, Ulric had come forward from the
shelter of the curtains. He was not red, but pale,--very pale, with a
look of such intense misery in his eyes, that Basil's momentary feeling
of contempt entirely faded into one of real anxiety and sympathy.

"Are you ill, Herr Wildermann? You look so strange. Is your mother ill?
Is anything dreadful the matter?" he asked hurriedly, pressing forward
nearer to the young man.

Ulric tried to smile, but it was a poor attempt, and he felt that it was
so. Suddenly a sort of weak, faint feeling came over him--he had walked
over to the Park in the full heat of the day, and the meals that were
eaten over the grocer's shop were very frugal!--he had not been prepared
for the news that had met him. "Could I--might I have a glass of water,
Master Basil?" he said, drawing to him a chair and dropping into it.

"I'll ring for--no, stay, I'll fetch it myself," said Basil, with quick
understanding. "I shouldn't like the servants to know he had been
_crying_--poor man," he thought to himself as he left the room. And in
two minutes he was back with a glass of wine and water.

"I made Sims put some sherry in it," he said half apologetically.
"You've knocked yourself up somehow, Herr Wildermann, haven't you?"

And Ulric drank obediently, and managed this time to smile more
successfully. "How kind and thoughtful the boy was--how could he be the
cause of such sorrow, if indeed he understood it!" thought the young man
to himself.

"I--yes--perhaps it was the hot sun," he said confusedly, as he put down
the glass. "Thank you, very much. I am all right now. Had we not better
begin? Not that I am hurried," he went on. "I can stay a full hour from
now. I have no engagements--nothing to hurry me home," he added sadly,
for in his heart he was thinking how he dreaded the return home, and
what he would have to tell his poor old mother.

"But what's the matter?" persisted Basil, who, now that the ice was
broken, felt inclined to get to the bottom of things. "What are you so
troubled about--what were you----?" He h