een up before the board; they're quite agreeable. In
fact, they've been rather decent to me."

Estelle gave a long sigh of relief and gratitude. It was really
extraordinary how she had been helped to avoid India. She couldn't think
what made Winn go on sitting there, just playing with the paper-knife.

He sat there for a long time, but he didn't say any more. At last he got
up and went to the door.

"Well," he said, "I think I'll just run up and have a look at the kid."

"Poor dear," said Estelle, "I'm frightfully sorry for you, of course,
though I don't believe it's at all painful--and by the way, Winn, don't
forget that consumption is infectious."

He stopped short as if someone had struck him. After all, he didn't go
to the nursery; she heard him go down the passage to the smoking-room
instead.

CHAPTER VIII

Sir Peter was having his annual attack of gout. Staines Court appeared
at these times like a ship battened down and running before a storm.

Figures of pale and frightened maids flickered through the long
passage-ways. The portly butler violently ejected from the dining-room
had been seen passing swiftly through the hall, with the ungainly
movement of a prehistoric animal startled from its lair.

The room in which Sir Peter sat burned with his language. Eddies of
blasphemous sound rushed out and buffeted the landings like a rising
gale.

Sir Peter sat in a big arm chair in the center of the room. His figure
gave the impression of a fortressed island in the middle of an empty
sea. His foot was rolled in bandages and placed on a low stool before
him; within reach of his hand was a knobbed blackthorn stick, a bell
and a copy of the "Times" newspaper.

Fortunately Lady Staines was impervious to sound and acclimatized to
fury. When Sir Peter was well she frequently raised storms, but when he
had gout she let him raise them for himself. He was raising one now on
the subject of Winn's letter.

"What's that he says? What's that he says?" roared Sir Peter. "Something
the matter with his lungs! That's the first time a Staines has ever
spoken of his lungs. The boy's mad. I don't admit it! I don't believe
it for a moment, all a damned piece of doctors' rubbish, the chap's
a fool to listen to 'em! When has he ever seen me catering to
hearse-conducting, pocket-filling asses!"

Charles was home on a twenty-four hours' leave--he stood by the
mantelpiece and regarded his parent with undutiful and critical