he latter's anxiety at
at his own negligence in not having written to him, the fact of the
matter being, he said, that he had been taken up with visiting some of
his Oxford friends, and had not till that afternoon been near his club
to look for letters. He would, however, he added, return on the
morrow, and make his apologies in person.

This letter he handed to his wife to read.

"Do you think that will do?" he asked, when she had finished.

"Oh, yes!" she replied, with a touch of her old sarcasm, "it is a
masterpiece of falsehood."

Philip looked very angry, and fumed and fretted; but he made no reply,
and on the following morning he departed to Bratham Abbey.

"Ah, Philip, Philip!" said his father, under the mellow influence of
his fourth glass of port, on the night of his arrival. "I know well
enough what kept you up in town. Well, well, I don't complain, young
men will be young men; but don't let these affairs interfere with the
business of life. Remember Maria Lee, my boy; you have serious
interests in that direction, interests that must not be trifled with,
interests that I have a right to expect you will _not_ trifle with."

His son made no reply, but sipped his wine in silence, aching at his
heart for his absent bride, and wondering what his father would say
did he really know what had "kept him in town."

After this, matters went on smoothly enough for a month or more;
since, fortunately for Philip, the great Maria Lee question, a
question that the more he considered it the more thorny did it appear,
was for the moment shelved by the absence of that young lady on a
visit to her aunt in the Isle of Wight. Twice during that month he
managed, on different pretexts, to get up to London and visit his
wife, whom he found as patient as was possible under the
circumstances, but anything but happy. Indeed, on the second occasion,
she urged on him strongly the ignominy of her position, and even
begged him to make a clean breast of it to his father, offering to
undertake the task herself. He refused equally warmly, and some sharp
words ensued to be, however, quickly followed by a reconciliation.

On his return from this second visit, Philip found a note signed
"affectionately yours, Maria Lee," waiting for him, which announced
that young lady's return, and begged him to come over to lunch on the
following day.

He went--indeed, he had no alternative but to go; and again fortune
favoured him in the person of a