The story, with all its romance of attachment and its long trial of faithful secrecy, touched the prejudices and the sympathies of every squire and shepherd between Duddon and Esk and Windermere.  Stephen came to his own, and they received him with open arms.  But for Julius, there was not a “seat” in the Dales, nor a cottage on the fells, no, nor a chair in any of the local inns, where he was welcome.  He stood his social excommunication longer than could have been expected; and, even at the end, his surrender was forced from him by the want of money, and the never-ceasing laments of Sophia.  She was clever enough to understand from the first, that fighting the case was simply “indulging Julius in his temper;” and she did not see the wisdom of spending what little money they had in such a gratification.

“You have been caught in your own trap, Julius,” she said aggravatingly.  “Very clever people often are.  It is folly to struggle.  You had better ask Stephen to pay you back the ten thousand pounds.  I think he ought to do that.  It is only common honesty.”

But Stephen had not the same idea of common honesty as Sophia had.  He referred Julius to Harry.

“Harry, indeed!  Harry who is in New York making ducks and drakes of your money, Julius,—­trying to buy shares and things that he knows no more of than he knows of Greek.  It’s a shame!” and Sophia burst into some genuine tears over the reflection.

Still the idea, on a less extravagant basis, seemed possible to Steve.  He began to think that it would be better to compromise matters with the Julius Sandals; better to lose a thousand pounds, or even two thousand pounds, if, by doing so, he could at once restore Mrs. Sandal and Charlotte to their home.  And he was on the point of making a proposition of this kind, when it was discovered that Julius and his wife had silently taken their departure.

“It is a hopeless fight against destiny,” said Julius.  “When the purse is empty, any cause is weak.  I have barely money to take us to Calcutta, Sophia.  It is very disagreeable to go there, of course; but my father advised this step, and I shall remind him of it.  He ought, therefore, to re-arrange my future.  It is hard enough for me to have lost so much time carrying out his plans.  And I should write a letter to your mother before you go, if I were you, Sophia.  It is your duty.  She ought to have her cruel behavior to you pointed out to her.”

Sophia did her duty.  She wrote a very clever letter, which really did make both her mother and sister wretchedly uncomfortable.  Charlotte held it in her hand with a heartache, wondering whether she had indeed been as envious and unjust and unkind as Sophia felt her to have been; and Mrs. Sandal buried her face in her sofa pillow, and had a cry over her supposed partiality and want of true motherly feeling.  “They had been so misunderstood, Julius and she,—­wilfully misunderstood, she feared;