o the
governor for me, Mr. Pendennis?"

"And tell him what?"

"I've gone and done it, sir," said Huxter, with a particular look.

"You--you don't mean to say you have--you have done any wrong to that
dear little creature, sir?" said Pen, starting up in a great fury.

"I hope not," said Huxter, with a hangdog look: "but I've married her.
And I know there will be an awful shindy at home. It was agreed that I
should be taken into partnership when I had passed the College, and it
was to have been Huxter and Son. But I would have it, confound it. It's
all over now, and the old boy's wrote me that he's coming up to town for
drugs: he will be here to-morrow, and then it must all come out."

"And when did this event happen?" asked Pen, not over well pleased, most
likely, that a person who had once attracted some portion of his royal
good graces should have transferred her allegiance, and consoled herself
for his loss.

"Last Thursday was five weeks--it was two days after Miss Amory came to
Shepherd's Inn," Huxter answered.

Pen remembered that Blanche had written and mentioned her visit. "I was
called in," Huxter said. "I was in the Inn looking after old Cos's leg;
and about something else too, very likely: and I met Strong, who told
me there was a woman taken ill in Chambers, and went up to give her my
professional services. It was the old lady who attends Miss Amory--her
housekeeper, or some such thing. She was taken with strong hysterics:
I found her kicking and screaming like a good one--in Strong's chamber,
along with him and Colonel Altamont, and Miss Amory crying and as pale
as a sheet; and Altamont fuming about--a regular kick-up. They were two
hours in the Chambers; and the old woman went whooping off in a cab. She
was much worse than the young one. I called in Grosvenor Place next day
to see if I could be of any service, but they were gone without so much
as thanking me: and the day after I had business of my own to attend
to--a bad business too," said Mr. Huxter, gloomily. "But it's done, and
can't be undone; and we must make the best of it"

She has known the story for a month, thought Pen, with a sharp pang of
grief, and a gloomy sympathy--this accounts for her letter of to-day.
She will not implicate her father, or divulge his secret; she wishes to
let me off from the marriage--and finds a pretext--the generous girl!

"Do you know who Altamont is, sir?" asked Huxter, after the pause during
which Pen had