cried, "go home--go home. You must not stay here."

"When I go, you will go with me," Betty answered. "I am not going back
to mother without you."

She made a collection of many facts before their interview was at an
end, and they parted for the night. Among the first was that Nigel had
prepared for certain possibilities as wise holders of a fortress prepare
for siege. A rather long sitting alone over whisky and soda had, without
making him loquacious, heated his blood in such a manner as led him to
be less subtle than usual. Drink did not make him drunk, but malignant,
and when a man is in the malignant mood, he forgets his cleverness. So
he revealed more than he absolutely intended. It was to be gathered that
he did not mean to permit his wife to leave him, even for a visit; he
would not allow himself to be made ridiculous by such a thing. A man
who could not control his wife was a fool and deserved to be a
laughing-stock. As Ughtred and his future inheritance seemed to have
become of interest to his grandfather, and were to be well nursed and
taken care of, his intention was that the boy should remain under his
own supervision. He could amuse himself well enough at Stornham, now
that it had been put in order, if it was kept up properly and he filled
it with people who did not bore him. There were people who did not bore
him--plenty of them. Rosalie would stay where she was and receive his
guests. If she imagined that the little episode of Ffolliott had been
entirely dormant, she was mistaken. He knew where the man was, and
exactly how serious it would be to him if scandal was stirred up. He had
been at some trouble to find out. The fellow had recently had the luck
to fall into a very fine living. It had been bestowed on him by the old
Duke of Broadmorlands, who was the most strait-laced old boy in England.
He had become so in his disgust at the light behaviour of the wife he
had divorced in his early manhood. Nigel cackled gently as he detailed
that, by an agreeable coincidence, it happened that her Grace had
suddenly become filled with pious fervour--roused thereto by a
good-looking locum tenens--result, painful discoveries--the pair
being now rumoured to be keeping a lodging-house together somewhere in
Australia. A word to good old Broadmorlands would produce the effect
of a lighted match on a barrel of gunpowder. It would be the end of
Ffolliott. Neither would it be a good introduction to Betty's first
season in