th energy.

Marsham was not quick to reply. His manner as he stood with his back to
the fire, his distinguished head well thrown back on his straight, lean
shoulders, was the manner of a proud man suffering humiliation. He was
thirty-six, and rapidly becoming a politician of importance. Yet here he
was--poor and impotent, in the midst of great wealth, wholly dependent,
by his father's monstrous will, on his mother's caprice--liable to be
thwarted and commanded, as though he were a boy of fifteen. Up till now
Lady Lucy's yoke had been tolerable; to-day it galled beyond endurance.

Moreover, there was something peculiarly irritating at the moment in
Ferrier's intervention. There had been increased Parliamentary friction
of late between the two men, in spite of the intimacy of their personal
relations. To be forced to owe fortune, career, and the permission to
marry as he pleased to Ferrier's influence with his mother was, at this
juncture, a bitter pill for Oliver Marsham.

Ferrier understood him perfectly, and he had never displayed more
kindness or more tact than in the conversation which passed between
them. Marsham finally agreed that Diana must be frankly informed of his
mother's state of mind, and that a waiting policy offered the only hope.
On this they were retiring to the front drawing-room when Lady Lucy
opened the communicating door.

"A letter for you, Oliver."

He took it, and turned it over. The handwriting was unknown to him.

"Who brought this?" he asked of the butler standing behind his mother.

"A servant, sir, from Beechcote Manor, He was told to wait for an
answer."

"I will send one. Come when I ring."

The butler departed, and Marsham went hurriedly into the inner room,
closing the door behind him. Ferrier and Lady Lucy were left, looking at
each other in anxiety. But before they could put it into words, Marsham
reappeared, in evident agitation. He hurried to the bell and rang it.

Lady Lucy pointedly made no inquiry. But Ferrier spoke.

"No bad news, I hope?"

Marsham turned.

"She has been told?" he said, hoarsely, "Mrs. Colwood, her companion,
speaks of 'shock.' I must go down at once."

Lady Lucy said nothing. She, too, had grown white.

The butler appeared. Marsham asked for the Sunday trains, ordered some
packing, went down-stairs to speak to the Beechcote messenger,
and returned.

Ferrier retired into the farthest window, and Marsham approached his
mother.

"Good-bye, mot