?"

"Oh--I _have_ seen him--now and then----"

There was a singular hesitancy in her answer to the abrupt question.
Piers, preoccupied as he was, could not but remark Mrs. Hannaford's
constraint, almost confusion. At once it struck him that Daniel had
been borrowing money of her, and the thought aroused strong
indignation. His own hundred and fifty pounds he had never recovered,
for all Daniel's fine speeches, and notwithstanding the fact that he
had taken suggestive care to let the borrower know his address in
Russia. Rapidly he turned in his mind the question whether he ought not
to let Mrs. Hannaford know of Daniel's untrustworthiness; but before he
could decide, she launched into another subject.

"So this is to be your place of business? Here you will sit day after
day. If good wishes could help, how you would flourish! Is it orthodox
to pray for a friend's success in business?"

"Why not? Provided you add--so long as he is guilty of no rascality."

"That, _you_ will never be."

"Why, to tell you the truth, I shouldn't know how to go about it. Not
everyone who wishes becomes a rascal in business. It's difficult enough
for me to pursue commerce on the plain, honest track; knavery demands
an expertness altogether beyond me. Wherefore, let us give thanks for
my honest stupidity!"

They chatted a while of these things. Then Piers, grasping his courage,
uttered what was burning within him.

"When is Miss Derwent to be married?"

Mrs. Hannaford's eyes escaped his hard look. She murmured that no date
had yet been settled.

"Tell me--I beg you will tell me--is her engagement absolutely certain?"

"I feel sure it is."

"No! I want more than that. Do you know that it is?"

"I can only say that her father believes it to be a certain thing. No
announcement has yet been made."

"H'm! Then it isn't settled at all."

Piers sat stiffly upon his chair. He held an ivory paperknife, which he
kept bending across his knee, and of a sudden the thing snapped in two.
But he paid no attention, merely flinging the handle away. Mrs.
Hannaford looked him in the face; he was deeply flushed; his lips and
his throat trembled like those of a child on the point of tears.

"Don't! Oh, don't take it so to heart! It seems impossible--after all
this time----"

"Impossible or not, it _is_!" he replied impetuously. "Mrs. Hannaford,
you will do something for me. You will let me come down to Malvern,
whilst she is with you, and see h