d that you should bear what was useless. Anstruthers was
a blackguard, and girls of all nations have married blackguards before.
When you have Rosy safe at home, and know nothing can hurt her again,
you both may feel you would like to talk it over. Till then we won't go
into detail. You trust me, I know, when I tell you that you shall hold
Rosy in your arms very soon. We may have something of a fight, but there
can only be one end to it in a country as decent as England. Anstruthers
isn't exactly what I should call an Englishman. Men rather like him are
to be found in two or three places." His good-looking, shrewd, elderly
face lighted with a fine smile. "My handsome Betty has saved us a good
deal by carrying out her fifteen-year-old plan of going to find her
sister," he ended.

Before they landed they had decided that Mrs. Vanderpoel should be
comfortably established in a hotel in London, and that after this was
arranged, her husband should go to Stornham Court alone. If Sir Nigel
could be induced to listen to logic, Rosalie, her child, and Betty
should come at once to town.

"And, if he won't listen to logic," added Mr. Vanderpoel, with a dry
composure, "they shall come just the same, my dear." And his wife put
her arms round his neck and kissed him because she knew what he said was
quite true, and she admired him--as she had always done--greatly.

But when the pilot came on board and there began to stir in the ship the
agreeable and exciting bustle of the delivery of letters and welcoming
telegrams, among Mr. Vanderpoel's many yellow envelopes he opened one
the contents of which caused him to stand still for some moments--so
still, indeed, that some of the bystanders began to touch each other's
elbows and whisper. He certainly read the message two or three times
before he folded it up, returned it to its receptacle, and walked
gravely to his wife's sitting-room.

"Reuben!" she exclaimed, after her first look at him, "have you bad
news? Oh, I hope not!"

He came and sat down quietly beside her, taking her hand.

"Don't be frightened, Annie, my dear," he said. "I have just been
reminded of a verse in the Bible--about vengeance not belonging to mere
human beings. Nigel Anstruthers has had a stroke of paralysis, and it is
not his first. Apparently, even if he lies on his back for some months
thinking of harm, he won't be able to do it. He is finished."

When he was carried by the express train through the country,