away in alarm, and stopping short in what he
was telling; refusing, in abject terror, to say
more. Then would come a burst of the wind
and a sudden howl from the storm outside, and
he would shrink and fling his head into the
cushions of his chair, as if it were the earth.
When he looked up again, he would see the calm
face of Miss Manuel opposite to him, like a judgment.
He was driven on. When all he had to tell
had been wrung from him, one of the wild hurricanes
came down the street, and brought with it
the clatter and the roar and the metallic jingling
of dislodged slates cantering down the street on
their edge. With it, too, came the sound of
horse's feet and of wheels, which stopped
suddenly at the door. Then there were voices. The
old man was on his feet in an agony of terror.

"It is a judgment on me," he said. " He is
come again, and he will tell that man, and I shall
be destroyed. Go! go quick! leave me here.
O, if he should find you—-"

"Hush!" said Miss Manuel. "You may trust
me. No one shall know a word, nor even the
whisper of a word." And she had flown to the
door, and was up-stairs in her room in a second.

It was the son come home. The eminent
country doctor had by some accident been
beforehand with him. The pink Welshman was
soured. He started when he saw his father at
the door. "Not in bed!" he said, roughly.
"What work is this? What have you been at?
Come!"

The old man quavered out some excuse about
having fallen asleep. But the son was suspicious,
with the suspicion, too, of ill humour, and went
away lowering at the pale and trembling father.
But he was yet more suspicious when Miss
Manuel announced that she was going away, and
took an early train to London. Most joyful was
the maid in whose service she was.

Later, Mr. Speedy, and, later still, the Crown
solicitors came to gather up yet further details.
They groped and ferreted here and there, but
they found the scent had grown cold. There
were terrible gaps, and a dozen links wanting
here and there, and no dexterity of the legal
whitesmith could join them. Still, there was
"a fair case" to go to a jury on—a case
handsomely suspicious. Then misfortunes came
thickly. Old Doctor Jones died suddenly;
and though his testimony, such as it was, was
forthcoming in another shape, still it would not
have such an effect " with the jury." An eminent
Nisi Prius advocate had been secured for the
prisoner, who would " knock to pieces " the
"wretched case for the Crown," made up, as it
was, of "old medicine bottles," and of the
damaged capacities of a miserable old dotard,
who "crooned" all day and night over a fire,
and who, his neighbours would show, had not
been in his right mind for years. Claysop, M.P.,
"in his place" in the House, put a question
to the Home Secretary, and threatened to move
for papers and correspondence, and the Home
Secretary said he would communicate with
the legal advisers of the Crown. In various
newspapers there were articles headed "Major
Carter's Case." It was taken up so warmly,
and every day grew so weak, that presently
all proceedings were dropped. It was spoken
of by Major Carter's " friends" as " a conspiracy."
But Mr. Speedy and the insurance
office kept him at bay; and certainly Major
Carter—who was seen very often on the Conti-
nent afterwards with his wife and son—never
attempted to enforce his claim by process of
law.

CHAPTER XLI. THE "MODERATES' CLUB."

THE town still talked for some days of this
"painful" business, and a morning penny journal
had a gaudy leading article, worked in all the
rich colours of word painting. At the Moderates'
Club, Sir Hopkins Pocock, now become faintly
querulous, and with a grievance in his pocket
which he took out to show to every one that he
met, acquired some little importance by his
patent rights in previous portions of the
major's history. "I knew all about him; I
know all about him," he said, pushing himself
into a knot of Moderators. " Bless you! there
was a very curious business at Monaco, long ago.
I never told of it before; but now——" And
then Sir Hopkins began a calumnious little
history about a bill, and the clergyman of the
place's son, who was only fourteen, sir, and
looked twelve ("quite a child! O, it was
very bad!"); by reason of which adventure the
major had to hurry away precipitately from
the place. Into which little story, however, he
managed to introduce so many ingenious references
to his own hard condition, and to the cruel
way in which his public services had been
acknowledged, that the more youthful Moderators
yawned in his face, and, going away, told other
Moderators that " Old Pocock was at it again."

To this society belonged Romaine and Fermor,
and many more of the same standing. It was a
little select, more fashionable than political, and
to Romaine' s exertions, Fermor had indeed owed
his entrance. This obligation—with some more
of the same social cast—he was now carrying
about like a coal of fire on his head. On this
night Fermor was dining by himself at a lonely
table, full of bitterness. The club joint was
tasteless to him; for, close by, with his back to
him, was Romaine with three others dining in
great spirits, and Romaine, more sarcastic,
boisterous, noisy, and even insolent, than usual.
Old gentlemen, busy with their newspapers,
protested with fierce looks against his merriment,
They were talking of the wedding.

'I knew it all along," said Romaine, in a
noisy burst. " I told every man I met it would
come to a business. Ask Wallis!  And yet a
good fellow!  I am sorry for him, I am indeed.
He was always civil to me. I believe it is a
conspiracy; or, if it's not, it's all one. I like him
the better for it. I wish all the old wives in the
world could be got rid of in the same way. I do,