ere
threatened and avoided. At last Wykham Delandre settled down to a
morose, vengeful acceptance of the situation.

Neither Margaret nor Geoffrey was of a pacific temperament, and it was
not long before there began to be quarrels between them. One thing
would lead to another, and wine flowed freely at Brent's Rock. Now and
again the quarrels would assume a bitter aspect, and threats would be
exchanged in uncompromising language that fairly awed the listening
servants. But such quarrels generally ended where domestic
altercations do, in reconciliation, and in a mutual respect for the
fighting qualities proportionate to their manifestation. Fighting for
its own sake is found by a certain class of persons, all the world
over, to be a matter of absorbing interest, and there is no reason to
believe that domestic conditions minimise its potency. Geoffrey and
Margaret made occasional absences from Brent's Rock, and on each of
these occasions Wykham Delandre also absented himself; but as he
generally heard of the absence too late to be of any service, he
returned home each time in a more bitter and discontented frame of
mind than before.

At last there came a time when the absence from Brent's Rock became
longer than before. Only a few days earlier there had been a quarrel,
exceeding in bitterness anything which had gone before; but this, too,
had been made up, and a trip on the Continent had been mentioned
before the servants. After a few days Wykham Delandre also went away,
and it was some weeks before he returned. It was noticed that he was
full of some new importance--satisfaction, exaltation--they hardly
knew how to call it. He went straightway to Brent's Rock, and demanded
to see Geoffrey Brent, and on being told that he had not yet returned,
said, with a grim decision which the servants noted:

'I shall come again. My news is solid--it can wait!' and turned away.
Week after week went by, and month after month; and then there came a
rumour, certified later on, that an accident had occurred in the
Zermatt valley. Whilst crossing a dangerous pass the carriage
containing an English lady and the driver had fallen over a precipice,
the gentleman of the party, Mr. Geoffrey Brent, having been
fortunately saved as he had been walking up the hill to ease the
horses. He gave information, and search was made. The broken rail, the
excoriated roadway, the marks where the horses had struggled on the
decline before finally pitching