s made himself disagreeable to me. Instead of
being my friend, he is,--I will not say my enemy, because I should
be making too much of him; but nearer to being so than any one I
know. Now, what is the meaning of all this? Why did he trouble you
especially down in Cumberland? Why do you call him my friend? And why
do you wish to speak to me about him?"

"He introduced himself to me, and told me that he was your special
friend."

"Then he lied."

"I should not have cared about that;--but he did more."

"What more did he do?"

"I would have been courteous to him,--if only because he sat at the
same desk with you;--but--"

"But what?"

"There are things which are difficult to be told."

"If they have to be told, they had better be told," said Roden,
almost angrily.

"Whether friend or not, he knew of--your engagement with my sister."

"Impossible!"

"He told me of it," said Lord Hampstead impetuously, his tongue now
at length loosed. "Told me of it! He spoke of it again and again
to my extreme disgust. Though the thing had been fixed as Fate, he
should not have mentioned it."

"Certainly not."

"But he did nothing but tell me of your happiness, and good luck, and
the rest of it. It was impossible to stop him, so that I had to ride
away from him. I bade him be silent,--as plainly as I could without
mentioning Fanny's name. But it was of no use."

"How did he know it?"

"You told him!"

"I!"

"So he said." This was not strictly the case. Crocker had so
introduced the subject as to have avoided the palpable lie of
declaring that the tidings had been absolutely given by Roden to
himself. But he had not the less falsely intended to convey that
impression to Hampstead, and had conveyed it. "He gave me to
understand that you were speaking about it continually at your
office." Roden turned round and looked at the other man, white with
rage--as though he could not allow himself to utter a word. "It was
as I tell you. He began it at the Castle, and afterwards continued it
whenever he could get near me when hunting."

"And you believed him?"

"When he repeated his story so often what was I to do?"

"Knock him off his horse."

"And so be forced to speak of my sister to every one in the hunt and
in the county? You do not feel how much is due to a girl's name."

"I think I do. I think that of all men I am the most likely to feel
what is due to the name of Lady Frances Trafford. Of course I never
mentioned