odgings in Mount Street and went down
to his club to dinner. He could, at any rate, do nothing that night.
His letter to Allington must, no doubt, be written at once; but, as
he could not send it before the next night's post, he was not forced
to set to work upon it that evening. As he walked along Piccadilly
on his way to St. James's Square, it occurred to him that it might
be well to write a short line to Lily, telling her nothing of the
truth,--a note written as though his engagement with her was still
unbroken, but yet written with care, saying nothing about that
engagement, so as to give him a little time. Then he thought that he
would telegraph to Bernard and tell everything to him. Bernard would,
of course, be prepared to avenge his cousin in some way, but for such
vengeance Crosbie felt that he should care little. Lady Julia had
told him that Lily was without father or brother, thereby accusing
him of the basest cowardice. "I wish she had a dozen brothers," he
said to himself. But he hardly knew why he expressed such a wish.

He returned to London on the last day of October, and he found the
streets at the West End nearly deserted. He thought, therefore, that
he should be quite alone at his club, but as he entered the dinner
room he saw one of his oldest and most intimate friends standing
before the fire. Fowler Pratt was the man who had first brought him
into Sebright's, and had given him almost his earliest start on his
successful career in life. Since that time he and his friend Fowler
Pratt had lived in close communion, though Pratt had always held a
certain ascendancy in their friendship. He was in age a few years
senior to Crosbie, and was in truth a man of better parts. But he was
less ambitious, less desirous of shining in the world, and much less
popular with men in general. He was possessed of a moderate private
fortune on which he lived in a quiet, modest manner, and was
unmarried, not likely to marry, inoffensive, useless, and prudent.
For the first few years of Crosbie's life in London he had lived very
much with his friend Pratt, and had been accustomed to depend much
on his friend's counsel; but latterly, since he had himself become
somewhat noticeable, he had found more pleasure in the society of
such men as Dale, who were not his superiors either in age or wisdom.
But there had been no coolness between him and Pratt, and now they
met with perfect cordiality.

"I thought you were down in Barset