polite language, and the third—­which, written in mingled anxiety and anger, had just arrived—­coolly announcing his parent’s intention, should he not hear of him by return, of setting detective officers to work to discover his whereabouts.  From this letter it appeared, indeed, that his cousin George had already been despatched to London to look for him, and on reference to the hall porter he discovered that a gentleman answering to his description had already inquired for him several times.

Cursing his own folly in not having kept up some communication with his father, he made the best of his way back to his lodgings, to find Hilda waiting for him somewhat disconsolately.

“I am glad you have come back, love,” she said, drawing him towards her till his dark curls mingled with her own fair locks, and kissing him upon the forehead.  “I have missed you dreadfully.  I don’t understand how I can have lived all these years without you.”

“I am afraid, dear, you will have to live without me for a while now; listen,” and he read her the letters he had just received.

She listened attentively till he had finished.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, with some anxiety in her voice.

“Do? why of course I must go home at once.”

“And what am I to do?”

“Well, I don’t know; I suppose that you must stop here.”

“That will be pleasant for me, will it not?”

“No, dear, it will be pleasant neither for you nor me; but what can I do?  You know the man my father is to deal with; if I stop here in defiance to his wishes, especially as he has been anxious about me, there is no knowing what might not happen.  Remember, Hilda, that we have to deal with George, whose whole life is devoted to secret endeavours to supplant me.  If I were to give him such an opportunity as I should by stopping away now, I should deserve all I got, or rather all I did not get.”

Hilda sighed and acquiesced; had she been a softer-minded woman she would have wept and relieved her feelings, but she was not soft-minded.  And so, before the post went out, he wrote an affectionate letter to his father, expressing his sorrow at the latter’s anxiety at at his own negligence in not having written to him, the fact of the matter being, he said, that he had been taken up with visiting some of his Oxford friends, and had not till that afternoon been near his club to look for letters.  He would, however, he added, return on the morrow, and make his apologies in person.

This letter he handed to his wife to read.

“Do you think that will do?” he asked, when she had finished.

“Oh, yes!” she replied, with a touch of her old sarcasm, “it is a masterpiece of falsehood.”

Philip looked very angry, and fumed and fretted; but he made no reply, and on the following morning he departed to Bratham Abbey.