tell me you think she is?"

Bob grunted inarticulately--an obvious, though not a skilful, evasion of
the question.

"And anyhow," Harry pursued, "the thing's at an end. I shan't marry her.
Now if that suggests any action on your part I--well, I shall be glad I
came to breakfast." He got up and went to the window, looking out on the
neat little garden and to the paddock beyond.

In a moment Bob Broadley's hand was laid on his shoulder. He turned and
faced him.

"What a thing for you! You--you lose it all?"

"I have given it all up."

"I can't realize it, you know. The change----"

"Perhaps I can't either. I don't know that I want to, Bob."

"Who made the discovery? How did it come out? Nobody ever had any
suspicion of it!"

Harry looked at him long and thoughtfully, but in the end he only shook
his head, saying, "Well, it's true anyhow."

"It beats me. I see what you mean about myself and--Still I give you my
word I hate its happening. Who's this girl? Why is she to come here? Who
knows anything about her?"

"You don't, of course," Harry conceded with a smile. "No more did I a
week ago."

"Couldn't you have made a fight for it?"

"Yes, a deuced good fight. But I chose to let it go. Now don't go on
looking as if you didn't understand the thing. It's simple enough."

"But Lady Tristram--your mother--must have known----"

"The question didn't arise as long as my mother lived," said Harry
quickly. "Her title was all right, of course."

There was another question on the tip of Bob's tongue, but after a
glance at Harry's face he did not put it; he could not ask Harry if he
had known.

"I'm hanged!" he muttered.

"Yes, but you understand why I came here?"

"Yes. That was kind."

"Oh, no. I want to spike the Major's guns, you know." He laughed a
little. "And--well, yes, I think I'm promoting the general happiness
too, if you must know. Now I'm off, Bob."

He held out his hand and Bob grasped it. "We'll meet again some day,
when things have settled down. Beat Duplay for me, Bob. Good-by."

"That's grit, real grit," muttered Bob, as he returned to the house
after seeing Harry Tristram on his way.

It was that--or else the intoxication of some influence whose power had
not passed away. Whatever it was, it had a marked effect on Bob
Broadley. There was an appearance of strength and resolution about
it--as of a man knowing what he meant to do and doing it. As he
inspected his pigs an hour later, Bob cam