l unselfishness." The doctor vigorously
replenished his pipe. "I vow I will go to Greece next spring, and leave
Patricia behind!"

Meanwhile, Mrs. Roughsedge walked to Beechcote--in meditation. The facts
she pondered were these, to put them as shortly as possible. Fred Birch
was fast becoming the _mauvais sujet_ of the district. His practice was
said to be gone, his money affairs were in a desperate condition, and
his mother and sister had already taken refuge with relations. He had
had recourse to the time-honored expedients of his type: betting on
horses and on stocks with other people's money. It was said that he had
kept on the safe side of the law; but one or two incidents in his career
had emerged to light quite recently, which had led all the scrupulous
in Dunscombe to close their doors upon him; and as he had no means of
bribing the unscrupulous, he had now become a mere object-lesson for
babes as to the advantages of honesty.

At the same time Miss Fanny Merton, first introduced to Brookshire by
Brookshire's favorite, Diana Mallory, was constantly to be seen in the
black sheep's company. They had been observed together, both in London
and the country--at race-meetings and theatres; and a brawl in the
Dunscombe refreshment-room, late at night, in which Birch had been
involved, brought out the scandalous fact that Miss Merton was in his
company. Birch was certainly not sober, and it was said by the police
that Miss Merton also had had more port wine than was good for her.

All this Brookshire knew, and none of it did Diana know. Since her
return she and Mrs. Colwood had lived so quietly within their own
borders that the talk of the neighborhood rarely reached her, and those
persons who came in contact with her were far too deeply touched by the
signs of suffering in the girl's face and manner to breathe a word that
might cause her fresh pain. Brookshire knew, through one or other of the
mysterious channels by which such news travels, that the two cousins
were uncongenial; that it was Fanny Merton who had revealed to Diana her
mother's history, and in an abrupt, unfeeling way; and that the two
girls were not now in communication. Fanny had been boarding with
friends in Bloomsbury, and was supposed to be returning to her family in
Barbadoes in the autumn.

The affair at the refreshment-room was to be heard of at Petty Sessions,
and would, therefore, get into the local papers. Mrs. Roughsedge felt
there was noth