er's will that has spoilt your temper, and made
you behave so strangely?'

'It is not _my_ temper that's spoilt. And as for behaving strangely--.'
She made an effort to command herself. 'Sit down, Horace, and let me
know what is the matter with you. Why we should be unfriendly, I really
can't imagine. I have suffered from ill health, that's all. I'm sorry
I behaved in that way when you talked of coming to Falmouth; it wasn't
meant as you seem to think. Tell me what you have to tell.'

He could not take a reposeful attitude, but, after struggling with some
reluctance, began to explain the agitation that beset him.

'Mrs. Damerel has done something I didn't think any woman would be
capable of. For months she has been trying to ruin Fanny, and now it has
come--she has succeeded. She made no secret of wanting to break things
off between her and me, but I never thought her plotting could go as
far as this. Fanny has run away--gone to the Continent with a man Mrs.
Damerel introduced to her.'

'Perhaps they are married,' said Nancy, with singular impulsiveness.

'Of course they're not. It's a fellow I knew to be a scoundrel the first
time I set eyes on him. I warned Fanny against him, and I told Mrs.
Damerel that I should hold her responsible if any harm came of the
acquaintance she was encouraging between him and Fanny. She did
encourage it, though she pretended not to. Her aim was to separate me
and Fanny--she didn't care how.'

He spoke in a high, vehement note; his cheeks flushed violently, his
clenched fist quivered at his side.

'How do you know where she is gone?' Nancy asked.

'She as good as told her sister that she was going to Brussels with
some one. Then one day she disappeared, with her luggage. And that
fellow--Mankelow's his name--has gone too. He lived in the same
boarding-house with Mrs. Damerel.'

'That is all the evidence you have?'

'Quite enough,' he replied bitterly.

'It doesn't seem so to me. But suppose you're right, what proof have
you that Mrs. Damerel had anything to do with it? If she is our mother's
sister--and you say there can be no doubt of it--I won't believe that
she could carry out such a hateful plot as this.'

'What does it matter who she is? I would swear fifty times that she has
done it. You know very well, when you saw her, you disliked her at once.
You were right in that, and I was wrong.'

'I can't be sure. Perhaps it was she that disliked me, more than I did
her. For