again, and it's damnably
fatiguing. She's not a bad sort--fought well when she was cornered. But
I couldn't let Eugene do it--I really couldn't. Ugh! I'll go back to
breakfast."

Kate was cowed. She told Haddington. Let us pass over that scene. She
also wrote to Eugene, addressing the letter to Millstead Manor. Eugene
was not at Millstead Manor; and if Ayre had hastily assumed that his
_fiancee_ would be in possession of his address, was it her business to
undeceive him? She was by no means inclined to do one jot more than
fulfill the letter of her bond--whereby it came to pass that Eugene did
not receive the letter for nearly two months and did not know of his
recovered liberty all that time. For Haddington, in his joy, easily
promised silence for a little while; it seemed only decent; and even
Ayre could not refuse to agree with him that, though Eugene must be
told, nobody else ought to be until Eugene had formally signified his
assent to the lady's transfer. Ayre could not take upon himself, on his
friend's behalf, the responsibility of dispensing with this ceremony,
though he was sure it would be a mere ceremony.

As for Ayre himself, when his task was done he straightway fled from
Baden. He was a hardened sinner, but he could not face Mrs. Welman.

It was, however, plainly impossible to confine the secret so strictly as
to prevent it coming to the knowledge of Lord Rickmansworth. Indeed he
had a right to know the issue, for he had been a sharer in the design;
and accordingly, when he also left Baden and betook himself to his own
house to spend what was left of the autumn, he carried locked in his
heart the news of the fresh development. On the whole he observed the
injunction of silence urgently laid upon him by Ayre with tolerable
faithfulness. But there are limits to these things, and it never entered
Rickmansworth's head that his sister was included among the persons who
were to remain in ignorance till the matter was finally settled. He met
Claudia at the family reunion at Territon Park in the beginning of
October, and when she and he and Bob were comfortably seated at dinner
together, among the first remarks he made--indeed, he was brimming over
with it--was:

"I suppose you've heard the news, Clau?"

What with one thing--packing and unpacking, traveling, perhaps less
obvious troubles--Lady Claudia was in a state which, if it manifested
itself in a less attractive person, might be called snappish.

"I n