le, 'the rest, never.'

Mr. Rollstone might have been distressed at the venture on which his
daughter's savings had gone; but he was perfectly happy and triumphant
now, except that, even more than Mrs. Morton, he suffered from the idea
of the Honourable Michael being exposed to the contamination of a
workhouse, and was shocked at his Lordship's thinking it would have been
worse for him to be with the Rattler. Then, hastily looking at his
watch, Lord Northmoor asked when the post went out, and hearing there was
but half an hour to spare, begged Mr. Deyncourt to let him lose no time
by giving him the wherewithal to write to his wife.

'She would miss a note and be uneasy,' he said. 'Yet I hardly know what
I dare tell her. Only not mourning paper!' he added, with an exultant
smile.

In the curate's room he wrote--

'DEAREST WIFE,--

'I have been out all day, and have only a moment to say that I am
quite well, and trust to have some most thankworthy news for you.
Don't be uneasy if you do not hear to-morrow.--Your own

'FRANK.'

There was still time to scribble--

'DEAR LADY ADELA,--

'I trust to you to prepare Mary for well-nigh incredible joy, but do
not agitate her too soon. I cannot come till Friday afternoon.

'Yours gratefully,
'NORTHMOOR.'

Having sent this off, his next search was for a time-table. He would
fain have gone by the mail train that very night, but Mr. Deyncourt and
Mrs. Morton united in persuading him that his strength was not yet equal
to such a pull upon it, and he yielded. They hardly knew the man,
usually so equable and quiet as to be almost stolid.

He smiled, and declared he could neither eat nor sleep, but he actually
did both, sleeping, indeed, better and longer than he had done since his
illness, and coming down in the morning a new man, as he called himself,
but the old one still in his kindness to Mrs. Morton. He promised to
telegraph to her as soon as he knew all was well, assured her that he
would do his best to keep the scandal out of the papers, that he would
never forget his obligations to Herbert's generosity, and that if she
made up her mind to leave Westhaven he would facilitate her so doing.

Ida was not up. She had had a very bad night, and indeed she h