on my way to him now."

"He's going to ask you to stay," I said.

"I think you're mistaken there," replied the chauffeur. "The old boy
himself has a strong sense of justice, and would like to make everything
all right, no doubt, but his wife would give him no peace if he did."

"If he does, though, what shall you do?" I inquired anxiously.

Mr. Dane looked into space. "I think I'd better go in any case."

"Why?"

If he'd been a woman, I think he would have answered "Because," but
being a man he reflected a few seconds, and said he thought it would be
better for him in the end.

"Do you want to go?" I asked, drearily.

"No. But I ought to want to."

"Please stay," I begged. "Please--brother."

"Sir Samuel mayn't ask me; and you wouldn't have me crawl to him?"

"But if he does ask you."

"I'll stay," he said.

Impulsively, I held out my hand. He took it, and pressed it so hard
that it hurt, then dropped it suddenly. His manner is certainly very odd
sometimes. I suppose he doesn't want me to flatter myself that I am of
any importance in his scheme of existence. But he needn't worry. He has
shown me very plainly that he is one of those typical, unsusceptible
Englishmen French writers put in their books, men with hearts whose
every compartment is warranted love-tight.

CHAPTER XVII

Lady Turnour opened her heart and her wardrobe and gave me a blouse the
first thing in the morning, which act of generosity was the more
remarkable as morning is not her best time. I have found that it is the
early maid who catches the first snub, which otherwise might fall
innocuously upon a husband. The blouse was one which I had heard her
ladyship say she hated; but then her idea of true charity, combined, as
it should be, with economy, is always to give to the poor what you
wouldn't be found dead in yourself, because it is more blessed to give
than to receive badly made things. On the same principle I immediately
passed the gift on to a chambermaid of the hotel, who perhaps in her
turn dropped it a grade lower in the social scale, and so it may go on
forever, blouse without end; but all that is apart from the point. The
important part of the transaction was the token that the dead past was
to bury its dead; and possibly Sir Samuel timidly offered a waistcoat or
a pair of boots to the chauffeur.

Instead of lying in bed, as Lady Turnour had threatened to do for a
week, she was up earlier than usual, as well as ever