el. "She did not want to leave her father."

"Ah, is that it?" said Wentworth, feeling that he could not decently
advance an urgent plea against Sir William. "Poor old man! I know he's
gone to pieces frightfully since his wife died--still, couldn't some one
have been found to take care of him?"

"Hardly any one like Rachel," Rendel said.

"Naturally," said Wentworth.

"You know he is living with us?" Rendel said.

"Is he?" said Wentworth surprised. "Upon my word, Frank, you are a good
son-in-law."

Rendel ignored the tone of Wentworth's last remark and said quite
simply--

"Oh! well, there was nothing else to be done. He's been ill, you know,
really rather bad; first he had a chill, and then influenza on the top
of it. He's frightfully low altogether."

"But I rather wonder," said Wentworth, "as Mrs. Rendel had her father
with her, that you didn't go to Africa without her. Wouldn't that have
been possible?"

"No," said Rendel decidedly. "Quite impossible."

"I should have thought," said Wentworth, "that in these enlightened days
a husband who could not do without his wife was rather a mistake."

"That may be," said Rendel. "But I think on the whole that the husband
who can do without her is a greater mistake still."

"It is a great pity you were not born five hundred years ago," said
Wentworth.

"I should have disliked it particularly," said Rendel. "I should have
been fighting at Flodden, or Crecy, or somewhere, and I should have
been too old to marry Rachel, even in these days of well-preserved
centenarians. It is no good, Jack; I am afraid you must leave me to my
folly."

"Well, well," said Wentworth, agreeing with the word, and thinking to
himself that even the wisest of men looks foolish at times when he has
the yoke of matrimony across his shoulders; "after all there is to be
said--if we are going to have another war on our hands in Africa, which
Heaven forfend, the time of the statesmen over there is hardly come
yet."

At this moment the door opened and the two men turned round quickly as
Rachel came in.

"Frank," said Rachel. "Should you mind----" Then she stopped as she saw
Wentworth. "Oh, how do you do, Mr. Wentworth? I didn't know you were
here. Don't let me interrupt you."

"On the contrary," said Wentworth, "it is I who am interrupting your
husband."

"I only came to see, Frank, if you were very busy," she said.

"I am not at this moment. Do you want me to do anything?"

"Well, p