his mother. Lady Victoria, even her
dauntless soul sick with grief and horrors, had gone to bed at once, and
after a funereal dinner, where he had made no response whatever to the
feeble efforts of the girls to illuminate the darkness in which he
moved, had gone to the smoking-room alone, wishing to think and plan,
yet grateful that he could not.

He had known nothing of the weakness of his grandfather's heart, and the
old gentleman, as ruddy and debonair as ever, had just come in from the
coverts when he arrived at the Abbey a few hours after Zeal's departure
from Capheaton. Always vain of his health and appearance since his
complete recovery, now many years ago, Lord Strathland had turned a
haughty back upon the one physician that had dared to warn him; not even
his valet was permitted to suspect that he had been forced to pay to
Time any debt beyond bleaching hair and an occasional twinge of gout.
The care he had taken of himself in his delicate youth had given him a
finer constitution than he would have been likely to enjoy had he been
able to go the wild way of many of his family; and it was his familiar
boast that he intended to live until ninety.

Elton's visit roused no curiosity in his complacent breast, for the
favorite seldom announced his coming, and it was quite in order that he
should run down for congratulations, and delight his affectionate if
disapproving relative with personal details of the great fight. He had
come with the intention of being the one to break the news of his
cousin's death to his grandfather, should it be necessary; but he
permitted himself to hope that Zeal would rise above his type. He had
driven him to the station himself, dispensing with the groom as well,
and pleaded with him to wait at least a month; to consider the matter
more coolly and carefully than had hitherto been possible; begged him to
return to Capheaton; offered to travel with him if he preferred to leave
England. Whatever might threaten in the future there could be no
immediate danger of arrest, for if the shot had carried beyond the
private rooms of the Club there would have been evidence of the fact at
once, and if the undertakers had suspected the truth and delayed giving
information, their purpose was blackmail and could be dealt with.

And while he argued and pleaded he wondered, as he had during the hours
he watched beside his cousin sleeping, if, in spite of certain
principles which he had believed to be im