After Fanny’s dislocated arm had been set, the surgeon had sent her home in the Rectory carriage, saying there was so much fever in Wil’sbro’, that she would be likely to recover better at home; but she had been suffering and feverish all night, and Dan Reynolds was now gone in quest of ‘Drake,’ for whom she had been calling all night.

“Is he her husband?” asked Julius.

“Well, I don’t know, sir; leastways, Granny says he ought to be answerable for what’s required.”

Mrs. Reynolds further betrayed that the family had not been ignorant of Fanny’s career since she had run away from home, leaving her child on her grandmother’s hands.  She had made her home in one of the yellow vans which circulate between fairs and races, driving an ostensible trade in cheap toys, but really existing by setting up games which were, in fact, forms of gambling, according to the taste of the people and the toleration of the police.  From time to time, she had appeared at home, late in the evening, with small sums of money and presents for her boy; and Mrs. Dan believed that she thought herself as good as married to ‘that there Drake.’  She was reported to be asleep, and the place ‘all of a caddle,’ and Julius promised to call later in the day.

“Yes, sir,” said Mrs. Reynolds; “it would be a right good thing, poor girl.  She’ve a kind heart, they all do say; not as I know, not coming here till she was gone, nor wanting to know much on her, for ’twas a right bad way she was in, and ’twere well if them nasty races were put down by Act of Parliament, for they be the very ruin of the girls in these parts.”

“There’s a new suggestion, Raymond,” said Julius as he shut the garden gate.

Raymond was long in answering, and when he spoke, it was to say, “I shall withdraw from the subscription to the Wil’sbro’ Cup.”

“So much the better.”

Then Raymond began discussing the terms of the letter in which he would state his reasons, but with an amount of excitement that made Julius say, “I should think it better not to write in this first heat.  It will take more effect if it is not so visibly done on the spur of the moment.”

But the usually deliberate Raymond exclaimed, “I cannot rest till it is done.  I feel as if I must be like Lady Macbeth, continually washing my hands of all this wreck and ruin.”

“No wonder; but I should think there was great need of caution—­to use your own words.”

“My seat must go, if this is to be the price,” said Raymond.  “I felt through all the speeches at that gilt-gingerbread place, that it was a monument of my truckling to expediency.  We began the whole thing at the wrong end, and I fear we are beginning to see the effects.”

“Do you mean that you are anxious about that fever in Water Lane?”

“There was an oppressive sickly air about everything, strongest at the ball.  I can’t forget it,” said Raymond, taking off his hat, so that the morning air might play about his temples.  “We talked about meddling women, but the truth was that they were shaming us by doing what they could.”