up to the
ceiling, and laughed aloud.

"There is no question about it," said Milton, "that Walcott got out of
it cheaply. I would not be in his shoes for any money, even now."

"Is this business widely known?" Sydney asked. "It is strange that I
never heard anything about it."

He was thinking that the acquaintance of Mr. Alan Walcott could not in
any case be a desirable thing for Miss Lettice Campion. From the manner
in which Dalton had introduced the subject he felt pretty sure that the
attention paid by this man to his sister had been noticed, and that his
friend was actuated by a sense, of duty in giving him warning as to the
facts within his knowledge.

"I don't wonder you never heard of it," said Dalton. "I am not aware of
anyone in England who ever did, except myself. I have not mentioned it
before, because I am not sure that it is fair to Walcott to do so. But I
know you men will not repeat what I have been telling you."

"Not a word," said Captain Williams and Charles Milton, in a breath.

Yet in less than a week from that time the whole story made its
appearance in one of the baser personal journals, and people were
discussing who the "well-known poet" was, and whether "the buried
secret" would presently come to light again.

And Alan Walcott saw the paragraph, and felt that he had not yet quite
done with his past, and wondered at the dispensation of Providence which
permitted the writers of such paragraphs to live and thrive.

But a good deal was to happen before that paragraph was printed; and in
the meantime Dalton and Campion went off to look for partners in a
rubber, without supposing for a moment that they had delivered a stab in
the back to one who had never done an injury to either of them.

CHAPTER IX.

LETTICE RECEIVES A VISITOR.

The day following that on which Sydney Campion paid his afternoon visit
to his club in Pall Mall was one of considerable importance to his
sister Lettice.

She was an early riser, and generally contrived to write half-a-dozen
pages of easy translation or straightforward fiction before ten o'clock.
That was the hour when she was due in her mother's room, to help her in
dressing, and to settle her comfortably in her arm-chair, with her Bible
and spectacles at her side, and a newspaper or magazine waiting its turn
after the lessons for the day had been read. Mrs. Campion was growing
very feeble, both in mind and in body, but she got through her waking
ho