‘The fine weather has tempted them,’ replied Mary.  ’I daresay they want to go somewhere.’

‘What right has she to make the change at a moment’s notice?’ vociferated the father, his voice suddenly recovering its old power, his cheeks and neck suffused with red wrath.  ’And hopes she will find me better.  What does she care whether she finds me alive or dead?’

‘Oh, don’t say that!  You wouldn’t let her know that you were worse.’

’What does it mean?  I hate this deceitful behaviour!  She knew before, of course she knew; and she left it to the last moment, so that I couldn’t write and prevent her from staying.  As if I should have wished to!  As if I cared a brass farthing how long she stays, or, for that matter, whether I ever see her again!’

He checked the course of his furious speech, and stood staring at the letter.

‘What did you say?’ He spoke now in a hoarse undertone.  ’You thought they were going somewhere?’

’Last year there used to be steamers that went to places on certain days—­’

’Nonsense!  She wouldn’t alter all their plans for that.  It’s something I am not to know—­of course it is.  She’s deceitful—­ like all women.’

He met Mary’s eye, suddenly turned upon him.  His own fell before it, and without speaking again he went into the house.

In half-an-hour’s time his bell rang, and not Mary, but the young servant responded.  According to her directions, she knocked at the door, and, without opening it, asked her master’s pleasure.  Mr. Lord said that he was going out, and would not require a meal till late in the evening.

It was nearly ten o’clock when he returned.  Mary, sitting in the front room, rose at his entrance.

‘I want nothing,’ he said.  ‘I’ve been to the Barmbys’.’  Voice and movements proved how the effort had taxed him.  In sitting down, he trembled; fever was in his eyes, and pain in every line of his countenance.

Mary handed him a letter; it came from Horace, and was an intimation that the young gentleman would not return to-night, but to-morrow.  When Mr. Lord had read it, he jerked a contemptuous laugh, and threw the sheet of note-paper across the table.

’There you are.  Not much to choose between daughter and son.  He’s due at business in the morning; but what does that matter?  It doesn’t suit his lordship to keep time.’

He laughed again, his emphasis on ‘lordship’ showing that he consciously played with the family name.

‘But I was a fool to be angry.  Let them come when they will.’

For a few minutes he lay back in the chair, gazing at vacancy.

‘Has the girl gone to bed?’

‘I’ll tell her she can go.’

Mary soon returned, and took up the book with which she had been engaged.  In a low voice, and as if speaking without much thought, Stephen asked her what she was reading.  It was a volume of an old magazine, bought by Mr. Lord many years ago.