been
much together. Was he with you yesterday, sir?"

"Yes, he was."

"What was that about?" asked Lord Silverbridge, in a voice that
almost betrayed fear, for he knew very well what cause had produced
the interview.

"He has been speaking to me--" When the Duke had got so far as this
he paused, finding himself to be hardly able to declare the disgrace
which had fallen upon himself and his family. As he did tell the
story, both his face and his voice were altered, so that the son, in
truth, was scared. "He has been speaking to me about your sister. Did
you know of this?"

"I knew there was something between them."

"And you encouraged it?"

"No, sir; just the contrary. I have told him that I was quite sure it
would never do."

"And why did you not tell me?"

"Well, sir; that was hardly my business, was it?"

"Not to guard the honour of your sister?"

"You see, sir, how many things have happened all at once."

"What things?"

"My dear mother, sir, thought well of him." The Duke uttered a deep
sigh and turned again round to the fire. "I always told him that you
would never consent."

"I should think not."

"It has come so suddenly. I should have spoken to you about it as
soon as--as soon as--" He had meant to say as soon as the husband's
grief for the loss of his wife had been in some degree appeased, but
he could not speak the words. The Duke, however, perfectly understood
him. "In the meantime, they were not seeing each other."

"Nor writing?"

"I think not."

"Mrs. Finn has known it all."

"Mrs. Finn!"

"Certainly. She has known it all through."

"I do not see how it can have been so."

"He told me so himself," said the Duke, unwittingly putting words
into Tregear's mouth which Tregear had never uttered. "There must be
an end of this. I will speak to your sister. In the meantime, the
less, I think, you see of Mr. Tregear the better. Of course it is out
of the question he should be allowed to remain in this house. You
will make him understand that at once, if you please."

"Oh, certainly," said Silverbridge.

CHAPTER VIII

"He Is a Gentleman"

The Duke returned to Matching an almost broken-hearted man. He had
intended to go down into Barsetshire, in reference to the coming
elections;--not with the view of interfering in any unlordly, or
rather unpeerlike fashion, but thinking that if his eldest son were
to stand for the county in a proper constitutional spirit, as the
eldes