confined him to his bed.  Where the money came from, which must be spent every day under such circumstances, it was difficult to say.  To the simply conservative of mind, the idea of filling one’s house with dirty East End hop pickers infected with typhoid seemed too radical.  Surely he could have done something less extraordinary.  Would everybody be expected to turn their houses into hospitals in case of village epidemics, now that he had established a precedent?  But there were people who approved, and were warm in their sympathy with him.  At the first dinner party where the matter was made the subject of argument, the beautiful Miss Vanderpoel, who was present, listened silently to the talk with such brilliant eyes that Lord Dunholm, who was in an elderly way her staunch admirer, spoke to her across the table: 

“Tell us what you think of it, Miss Vanderpoel,” he suggested.

She did not hesitate at all.

“I like it,” she answered, in her clear, well-heard voice.  “I like it better than anything I have ever heard.”

“So do I,” said old Lady Alanby shortly.  “I should never have done it myself—­but I like it just as you do.”

“I knew you would, Lady Alanby,” said the girl.  “And you, too, Lord Dunholm.”

“I like it so much that I shall write and ask if I cannot be of assistance,” Lord Dunholm answered.

Betty was glad to hear this.  Only quickness of thought prevented her from the error of saying, “Thank you,” as if the matter were personal to herself.  If Mount Dunstan was restive under the obviousness of the fact that help was so sorely needed, he might feel less so if her offer was only one among others.

“It seems rather the duty of the neighbourhood to show some interest,” put in Lady Alanby.  “I shall write to him myself.  He is evidently of a new order of Mount Dunstan.  It’s to be hoped he won’t take the fever himself, and die of it He ought to marry some handsome, well-behaved girl, and re-found the family.”

Nigel Anstruthers spoke from his side of the table, leaning slightly forward.

“He won’t if he does not take better care of himself.  He passed me on the road two days ago, riding like a lunatic.  He looks frightfully ill—­yellow and drawn and lined.  He has not lived the life to prepare him for settling down to a fight with typhoid fever.  He would be done for if he caught the infection.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Lord Dunholm, with quiet decision.  “Unprejudiced inquiry proves that his life has been entirely respectable.  As Lady Alanby says, he seems to be of a new order of Mount Dunstan.”

“No doubt you are right,” said Sir Nigel suavely.  “He looked ill, notwithstanding.”

“As to looking ill,” remarked Lady Alanby to Lord Dunholm, who sat near her, “that man looks as if he was going to pieces pretty rapidly himself, and unprejudiced inquiry would not prove that his past had nothing to do with it.”