“I hardly dare ask you!” she gasped, her hand trembling in his.  “Have you found out—­anything at all?”

“A little.”

And he opened his hand so that hers must drop.

“Oh, but anything is better than nothing!  Come in and tell me—­quick!”

“Bravo!” added an amused voice from the porch.

It was Steel, spruce and serene as ever, a pink glow upon his mobile face, a pink flower in his reefer jacket, a jaunty Panama straw covering his white hairs, and buckskin shoes of kindred purity upon his small and well-shaped feet.  Langholm greeted him in turn, only trusting that the tremors which had been instantly communicated to his own right hand might not be detected by the one it was now compelled to meet.

“I came to tell Mr. Steel,” said Langholm, a little lamely.

“Excellent!” murmured that gentleman, with his self-complacent smile.

“But am I not to hear also?” demanded Rachel.

“My dear Mrs. Steel, there is very little to tell you as yet.  I only wish there were more.  But one or two little points there are—­if you would not mind my first mentioning them to your husband?”

“Oh, of course.”

There was no pique in the tone.  There was only disappointment—­and despair.

“You manage a woman very prettily,” remarked Steel, as they watched the phaeton diminish down the drive like a narrow Roman road.

“You are the first who ever said so,” rejoined the novelist, with a rather heavy sigh.

“Well, let us have a cigar and your news.  I confess I am interested.  A stroll, too, would be pleasanter than sitting indoors, don’t you think?  The thickest walls have long ears, Langholm, when every servant in the place is under notice.  The whole lot?  Oh, dear, yes—­every mother’s son and daughter of them.  It is most amusing; every one of them wants to stay and be forgiven.  The neighbors are little better.  The excuses they have stooped to make, some of them!  I suppose they thought that we should either flee the country or give them the sanguinary satisfaction of a double suicide.  Well, we are not going to do either one or the other; we are agreed about that, if about nothing else.  And my wife has behaved like a trump, though she wouldn’t like to hear me say so; it is her wish that we should sit tighter than if nothing had happened, and not even go to Switzerland as we intended.  So we are advertising for a fresh domestic crew, and we dine at Ireby the week after next.  It is true that we got the invitation before the fat fell into the fire, but I fancy we may trust the Invernesses not to do anything startling.  I am interested, however, to see what they will do.  It is pretty safe to be an object-lesson to the countryside, one way or the other.”