if in abeyance; but this by no means suited the young lady’s views.  Mrs. Mountjoy was not a reticent woman, and had no doubt been too free in whispering among her friends something of her daughter’s position.  This Florence had resented; but it had still been done, and in Cheltenham generally she was regarded as an engaged young lady.  It had been in vain that she had denied that it was so.  Her mother’s word on such a subject was supposed to be more credible that her own; and now this man with whom she was believed to be so closely connected had disappeared from the world among the most disreputable circumstances.  But when she explained the difficulty to her mother her mother bade her hold her tongue for the present, and seemed to hold out a hope that the captain might at last be restored to his old position.

“Let them restore him ever so much, he would never be anything to me, mamma.”  Then Mrs. Mountjoy would only shake her head and purse her lips.

On the evening of the day after the fracas in the street Harry Annesley went down to Buston, and there remained for the next two or three days, holding his tongue absolutely as to the adventure of that night.  There was no one at Buston to whom he would probably have made known the circumstances.  But there was clinging to it a certain flavor of disreputable conduct on his own part which sealed his lips altogether.  The louder and more frequent the tidings which reached his ears as to the captain’s departure, the more strongly did he feel that duty required him to tell what he knew upon the matter.  Many thoughts and many fears encompassed him.  At first was the idea that he had killed the man by the violence of his blow, or that his death had been caused by the fall.  Then it occurred to him that it was impossible that Scarborough should have been killed and that no account should be given as to the finding of the body.  At last he persuaded himself that he could not have killed the man, but he was assured at the same time that the disappearance must in some sort have been occasioned by what then took place.  And it could not but be that the captain, if alive, should be aware of the nature of the struggle which had taken place.  He heard, chiefly from the newspapers, the full record of the captain’s illegitimacy; he heard of his condition with the creditors; he heard of those gambling debts which were left unpaid at the club.  He saw it also stated—­and repeated—­that these were the grounds for the man’s disappearance.  It was quite credible that the man should disappear, or endeavor to disappear, under such a cloud of difficulties.  It did not require that he and his violence should be adduced as an extra cause.  Indeed, had the man been minded to vanish before the encounter, he might in all human probability have been deterred by the circumstances of the quarrel.  It gave no extra reason for his disappearance, and could in no wise be counted with it were he to tell the whole story, in Scotland Yard.