labyrinth of suggested remedies, none of
which afforded him any outlet. The thought of exposure was horrible;
anything must be done to avoid that--disgrace to himself was bad
enough; to be held up for laughter before his Cambridge friends,
Randal, his London acquaintances--but disgrace to the family! That was
the awful thing!

From his cradle this creed of the family had been taught him; he had
learnt it so thoroughly that he had grown to test everything by that
standard; it was his father's disloyalty to that creed that had roused
the son's anger--and now, behold, the son was sinning more than the
father! It was truly ironic that, three days after his attacking a
member of the family for betraying the family, he himself should be
guilty of far greater betrayal! How topsy-turvy the world seemed, and
what was to be done?

The brevity and conciseness of Dahlia's last letter left him in no
doubt as to her intentions. Breach of Promise! The letters would be
read in court, would be printed in the newspapers for all the world to
see. With youth's easy grasping of eternity, it seemed to him that his
disgrace would be for ever. Beddoes' "Death's Jest-book" was lying
open on his knee. Wolfram's song--

Old Adam, the carrion crow,
The old crow of Cairo;
He sat in the shower, and let it flow
Under his tail and over his crest;
And through every feather
Leaked the wet weather;
And the bough swung under his nest;
For his beak it was heavy with marrow.
Is that the wind dying? Oh no;
It's only two devils, that blow
Through a murderer's bones, to and fro,
In the ghost's moonshine--

had always seemed to him the most madly sinister verse in English
literature. It had been read to him by Randal at Cambridge and had had
a curious fascination for him from the first. He had found that the
little bookseller at Worms had known it and had indeed claimed Beddoes
for a German--now it seemed to warn him vaguely of impending disaster.

He did not see that he himself could act any further in the matter; she
would not see him and writing was useless. And yet to leave the matter
uncertain, waiting for the blow to fall, with no knowledge of the
movements in the other camp, was not to be thought of. He must do
something.

The moment had arrived when advice must be taken--but from whom? His
father was out of the question. It was three days since the explosion,
and there was an a