“If I have an opportunity of speaking to my son’s wife alone,” she said, “have you any message to give?”

Sir Patrick produced a little note.

“May I appeal to your ladyship’s kindness to give her this?” The gate was opened by the servant-girl, as Lady Holchester took the note.  “Remember,” reiterated Sir Patrick, earnestly “if I can be of the smallest service to her—­don’t think of my position with Mr. Delamayn.  Send for me at once.”

Julius and his mother were conducted into the drawing-room.  The girl informed them that her master had gone up stairs to lie down, and that he would be with them immediately.

Both mother and son were too anxious to speak.  Julius wandered uneasily about the room.  Some books attracted his notice on a table in the corner—­four dirty, greasy volumes, with a slip of paper projecting from the leaves of one of them, and containing this inscription, “With Mr. Perry’s respects.”  Julius opened the volume.  It was the ghastly popular record of Criminal Trials in England, called the Newgate Calendar.  Julius showed it to his mother.

“Geoffrey’s taste in literature!” he said, with a faint smile.

Lady Holchester signed to him to put the book back.

“You have seen Geoffrey’s wife already—­have you not?” she asked.

There was no contempt now in her tone when she referred to Anne.  The impression produced on her by her visit to the cottage, earlier in the day, associated Geoffrey’s wife with family anxieties of no trivial kind.  She might still (for Mrs. Glenarm’s sake) be a woman to be disliked—­but she was no longer a woman to be despised.

“I saw her when she came to Swanhaven,” said Julius.  “I agree with Sir Patrick in thinking her a very interesting person.”

“What did Sir Patrick say to you about Geoffrey this afternoon—­while I was out of the room?”

“Only what he said to you. He thought their position toward each other here a very deplorable one.  He considered that the reasons were serious for our interfering immediately.”

“Sir Patrick’s own opinion, Julius, goes farther than that.”

“He has not acknowledged it, that I know of.”

“How can he acknowledge it—­to us?”

The door opened, and Geoffrey entered the room.

Julius eyed him closely as they shook hands.  His eyes were bloodshot; his face was flushed; his utterance was thick—­the look of him was the look of a man who had been drinking hard.

“Well?” he said to his mother.  “What brings you back?”

“Julius has a proposal to make to you,” Lady Holchester answered.  “I approve of it; and I have come with him.”

Geoffrey turned to his brother.

“What can a rich man like you want with a poor devil like me?” he asked.

“I want to do you justice, Geoffrey—­if you will help me, by meeting me half-way.  Our mother has told you about the will?”