g like me wants encouragement."

"A good many other people are on the lookout for encouragement in that
quarter."

"That settles it," said Dick; "I'll go at once. I've got to call on Lady
Susan Gresley, and I'll take Miss--"

"West. West. West."

"Miss West on the way."

"My dear fellow, Miss West does not live on the way to Woking. Lady
Susan Gresley died six months ago."

"Great Scot! I never heard of it. And what has become of Hester? She is
a kind of cousin of mine."

"Miss Gresley has gone to live in the country a few miles from us, with
her clergyman brother."

"James Gresley. I remember him. He's a bad egg."

"Now, Dick, are you in earnest, or are you talking nonsense about Miss
West?"

"I'm in earnest." He looked it.

"Then, for heaven's sake, don't put your foot in it by calling. My wife
has taken a violent fancy to Miss West. I don't think it is returned,
but that is a detail. If you want to give her a chance, leave it to me."

"I know what that means. You married men are mere sieves. You'll run
straight home with your tongue out and tell Lady Newhaven that I want to
marry Miss--I can't clinch her name--and then she'll tell her when they
are combing their back hair. And then if I find, later on, I don't like
her and step off the grass, I shall have behaved like a perfect brute,
and all that sort of thing. A man I knew out in Melbourne told me that
by the time he'd taken a little notice of a likely girl, he'd gone too
far to go back, and he had to marry her."

"You need not be so coy. I don't intend to mention the subject to my
wife. Besides, I don't suppose Miss West will look at you. You're a
wretched match for her. With her money she might marry a brewery or a
peerage."

"I'll put myself in focus anyhow," said Dick. "Hang it all! if you could
get a woman to marry you, there is hope for everybody. I don't expect it
will be as easy as falling off a log. But if she is what I take her to
be I shall go for all I'm worth."

Some one else was going for all he was worth. Lord Newhaven rode early,
and he had frequently seen Rachel and Hugh riding together at foot's
pace. Possibly his offer to help Dick was partly prompted by an
unconscious desire to put a spoke in Hugh's wheel.

Dick, whose worst enemy could not accuse him of diffidence, proved a
solid spoke but for a few days only. Rachel suddenly broke all her
engagements and left London.

CHAPTER IX

"Pour vivre tranquille il fa