when, two hours
afterwards, in pursuance of his instinctive reliance on the gentry, he
called on Hilary.

The latter, surrounded by books and papers--for, since his dismissal
of the girl, he had worked with great activity--was partaking of lunch,
served to him in his study on a tray.

"There's an old gentleman to see you, sir; he says you know him; his
name is Creed."

"Show him in," said Hilary.

Appearing suddenly from behind the servant in the doorway, the old
butler came in at a stealthy amble; he looked round, and, seeing
a chair, placed his hat beneath it, then advanced, with nose and
spectacles upturned, to Hilary. Catching sight of the tray, he stopped,
checked in an evident desire to communicate his soul.

"Oh dear," he said, "I'm intrudin' on your luncheon. I can wait; I'll go
and sit in the passage."

Hilary, however, shook his hand, faded now to skin and bone, and
motioned him to a chair.

He sat down on the edge of it, and again said:

"I'm intrudin' on yer."

"Not at all. Is there anything I can do?"

Creed took off his spectacles, wiped them to help himself to see more
clearly what he had to say, and put them on again.

"It's a-concerning of these domestic matters," he said. "I come up to
tell yer, knowing as you're interested in this family."

"Well," said Hilary. "What has happened?"

"It's along of the young girl's having left them, as you may know."

"Ah!"

"It's brought things to a crisax," explained Creed.

"Indeed, how's that?"

The old butler related the facts of the assault. "I took 'is bayonet
away from him," he ended; "he didn't frighten me."

"Is he out of his mind?" asked Hilary.

"I've no conscience of it," replied Creed. "His wife, she's gone the
wrong way to work with him, in my opinion, but that's particular to
women. She's a-goaded of him respecting a certain party. I don't say but
what that young girl's no better than what she ought to be; look at her
profession, and her a country girl, too! She must be what she oughtn't
to. But he ain't the sort o' man you can treat like that. You can't get
thorns from figs; you can't expect it from the lower orders. They only
give him a month, considerin' of him bein' wounded in the war. It'd
been more if they'd a-known he was a-hankerin' after that young girl--a
married man like him; don't ye think so, sir?"

Hilary's face had assumed its retired expression. 'I cannot go into that
with you,' it seemed to say.

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