“How can I expect a cynic and a misogynist to understand the simple fervour of an inexperienced soul—­Oh! drat it all, Quatermain, stop your acid chaff and tell me what is to be done.  Really I am in a tight place.”

“Very; so tight that I rejoice to think, as you were kind enough to point out, that my years protect me from anything of the sort.  I have no advice to give; I think you had better ask it of the lady.”

“Well, we did have a little conversation, hypothetical of course, about some friends of ours who found themselves similarly situated, and I regret to say without result.”

“Indeed.  I did not know you had any mutual acquaintances.  What did she say and do?”

“She said nothing, only sighed and looked as though she were going to burst into tears, and all she did was to walk away.  I’d have followed her if I could, but as my crutch wasn’t there it was impossible.  It seemed to me that suddenly I had come up against a brick wall, that there was something on her mind which she could not or would not let out.”

“Yes, and if you want to know, I will tell you what it is.  Rodd has got a hold over Marnham of a sort that would bring him somewhere near the gallows.  As the price of his silence Marnham has promised him his daughter.  The daughter knows that her father is in this man’s power, though I think she does not know in what way, and being a good girl—­”

“An angel you mean—­do call her by her right name, especially in a place where angels are so much wanted.”

“Well, an angel if you like—­she has promised on her part to marry a man she loathes in order to save her parent’s bacon.”

“Just what I concluded, from what we heard in the row.  I wonder which of that pair is the bigger blackguard.  Well, Allan, that settles it.  You and I are on the side of the angel.  You will have to get her out of this scrape and—­if she’ll have me, I’ll marry her; and if she won’t, why it can’t be helped.  Now that’s a fair division of labour.  How are you going to do it?  I haven’t an idea, and if I had, I should not presume to interfere with one so much older and wiser than myself.”

“I suppose that by the time you appeared in it, the game of heads I win and tails you lose had died out of the world,” I replied with an indignant snort.  “I think the best thing I can do will be to take the horse and look for those oxen.  Meanwhile you can settle your business by the light of your native genius, and I only hope you’ll finish it without murder and sudden death.”

“I say, old fellow,” said Anscombe earnestly, “you don’t really mean to go off and leave me in this hideousness?  I haven’t bothered much up to the present because I was sure that you would find a way out, which would be nothing to a man of your intellect and experience.  I mean it honestly, I do indeed.”

“Do you?  Well, I can only say that my mind is a perfect blank, but if you will stop talking I will try to think the matter over.  There’s Miss Heda in the garden cutting flowers.  I will go to help her, which will be a very pleasant change.”