he having been
instructed not to bring it up until Miss Lesley rang the bell. And after
Sarah came Mr. Maurice Kenyon, unannounced, after his usual fashion. And
on hearing his voice, Lesley slipped away between the curtains into the
library, and upstairs, through the library door.

"Why, Brooke, old fellow, you're not often to be found here at this
hour!" began Maurice. He looked on Caspar Brooke as a prophet and a hero
in his heart; but his manner before the world was characterized by the
frankest irreverence. Brooke was one of those men who are never older
than their companions.

"Well, you must be neglecting your patients shamefully to be here at
all. What do you want at this feminine meal?"

"I didn't come for tea," said Maurice, actually growing a little redder
as he spoke. "I came to see Miss Brooke."

"Oh, she's gone to a meeting of some Medical Association or other," said
Caspar, indifferently, as he sat down in Lesley's place at the dainty
tea-table, and poured out a cup of tea with the manner of a man who was
accustomed to serving himself. "Here, help yourself to sugar and cream."

"Thanks, I won't have any tea. I did not mean your sister: I meant Miss
Lesley--I thought I saw her as I came in."

"Anything important?" said Caspar, blandly. He was certain that Lesley
had gone away to cry--women always cry!--and he did not want her to be
disturbed. Although he had quarrelled with his wife, he understood
feminine susceptibilities better than most men.

"Oh, no. Only to ask her to sing at the Club on Sunday. It's my turn to
manage the music for that day, you know. Trent is going to sing too."

"Ah," said Mr. Brooke. Then, after a pause: "I will ask her. But I don't
think she will be able to sing on Sunday. It strikes me she has an
engagement."

He could not say to Ethel's brother what was in his mind, and yet he was
troubled by the intensity of his conviction that she was throwing
herself away upon "a cad." He must take some other method in the future
of giving Maurice a hint about young Trent.

Maurice thought, not untruly, that there was something odd in his tone.

"Isn't she well?" he asked, with his usual straightforwardness. "I hope
there is nothing wrong."

"I did not say there was anything wrong, did I?" demanded Caspar. Then,
squaring his shoulders, and sitting well back in his chair, with his
hands plunged into the pockets of his old study coat, and his eyes fixed
on his visitor's face, he th