’And we pretty well know all the points of Sir Timothy’s eloquence,’ said Barrington Erle.

’I am not going to tell any of the secrets.  I have no doubt that there were reporters present, and you will see the whole of it in the papers tomorrow.’  Then Silverbridge turned to his neighbour.  ‘Well, Lady Mab, and how are you this long time?’

’But how are you?  Think what you have gone through since we were at Killancodlem!’

‘Don’t talk of it.’

‘I suppose it is not to be talked of.’

’Though upon the whole it has happened very luckily, I have got rid of the accursed horses, and my governor has shown what a brick he can be.  I don’t think there is another man in England who would have done as he did.’

‘There are not many who could.’

’There are fewer who would.  When they came into my bedroom that morning and told me that the horse could not run, I thought I should have broken my heart.  Seventy thousand pounds gone!’

‘Seventy thousand pounds!’

’And the honour and glory of winning the race!  And then the feeling that one had been so awfully swindled!  Of course I had to look as though I did not care a straw about it, and to go and see the race, with a jaunty air and a cigar in my mouth.  That is what I call hard work.’

‘But you did it!’

’I tried.  I wish I could explain to you my state of mind that day.  In the first place the money had got to be got.  Though it was to go into the hands of swindlers, still it had to be paid.  I don’t know how your father and Percival get on together,—­but I felt like the prodigal son.’

‘It is very different with papa.’

’I suppose so.  I felt very like hanging myself when I was alone that evening.  And now everything is right again.’

‘I am glad that everything is right,’ she said, with a strong emphasis on everything.

’I have done with racing at any rate.  The feeling of being in the power of a lot of low blackguards is so terrible!  I did love the poor brute so dearly.  And now what have you been doing?’

’Just nothing;—­and have seen nobody.  I went back to Grex after leaving Killancodlem, and shut myself up in misery.’

‘Why misery?’

’Why misery!  What a question for you to ask!  Though I love Grex, I am not altogether fond of living alone, and though Grex has its charms, they are of a melancholy kind.  And when I think of the state of our family affairs, that is not reassuring.  You father has just paid seventy thousand pounds for you.  My father has been good enough to take something of less than a quarter of that sum from me;—­but still it was all that I was ever to have.’

‘Girls don’t want money.’

’Don’t they?  When I look forward it seems to me that a time will come when I shall want it very much.’

‘You will marry,’ he said.  She turned round for a moment and looked at him, full in the face, after a fashion that he did not dare to promise her future comfort in that direction.  ’Things always do come right, somehow.’