ny men. "It is all in the day's work," he muttered as he
rang the bell, for it was Malcolm's nature to philosophise even in
trouble.

It was only six o'clock, and the two sisters were sitting together in
the fire-lit twilight. Dinah was lying back in her easy-chair with her
eyes closed, but Elizabeth had drawn her chair opposite the fire, and
sat with her chin supported by her hands, gazing fixedly at the blazing
logs with an absorbed gravity that again surprised Malcolm.

When they heard the visitor announced they both started to their feet
and came towards him, but it was Elizabeth who spoke first. "Mr.
Herrick, this is too good of you. I hope--I trust," in an anxious tone,
"that your news is also good."

"You may rest assured of that," he returned, with an unconscious
pressure of her hand. Dinah heaved a deep sigh of relief, and pointed
silently to the chair that stood between them. She did not speak,
perhaps because she could not: her face looked as though she had passed
through an illness. Elizabeth, with her wonted quickness, answered
Malcolm's unspoken question.

"Dinah has had one of her bad sick headaches, and has only just come
downstairs. All this sad business has upset her greatly, but you will
be her best physician," with the old beaming smile which Malcolm dared
not meet. "Now," with a housewifely air, "shall I give you some tea?
You will dine with us, of course?" But Malcolm declined the offered
refreshment.

"I will dine with you if you wish it," he said rather formally, "and if
you and Miss Templeton will excuse the absence of war-paint; but I am
going back to town to-night."

"Oh no, not to-night!" she exclaimed in quite a shocked voice; "you
will be so tired." But Malcolm assured her with absolute truth that he
had never been less tired in his life. The storm and stress and
excitement of the day had acted on him like a tonic as well as an
anodyne; in thinking and planning for others he had found relief from
the intolerable ache of ever-present pain that had made his life so
purgatorial of late, and the unhealed wound throbbed less cruelly.

"I have so much to tell you that I think I had better begin at once,"
he observed in a business-like tone, and then both the sisters composed
themselves to listen. But this time they heard him less calmly. The
shock of learning Saul Jacobi's disgraceful plot, and Cedric's
infatuation and weakness, was too much for Dinah, and she sobbed
audibly.

"Oh, Bet