e he was weak any longer, or in diminished health. He was worn by
incessant travelling, by anxiety and the fluctuation of hope and fear;
but the great tension had strung his nerves and strengthened his vitality,
though it had worn off every superfluous particle of flesh. A keen anxiety
mingled with indignation was in his eyes as he looked across the gate
which the clergyman had fastened against him,--indignation, yet also a
smile. From the moment when Geoff's little voice had broken upon his
angry reverie, Dick had begun to recover himself. "Chatty wants you so."
It was only a child that spoke. But a child does not flatter or deceive,
and this was true. What Eustace Thynne thought, what anybody thought,
was of little consequence. Chatty! The simple name brought a softening
glow to Dick's eye. Would she come and open to him? Would she reverse
the judgment of the family by her own act, or would it be he who must
emancipate Chatty? He waited with something of his old gaiety rising in
his mind. The position was ludicrous. They had shut him out, but it
could not be for long.

Geoff galloped his pony to the gate, and up the little avenue, which was
still very shady and green, though so much of the wood had been cut. He
threw himself off and flung the reins to the gardener's boy, who stood
gazing open-mouthed at the little lord's headlong race. The doors were
not open, as usual, but Geoff knew that the drawing-room windows were
seldom fastened in the summer weather. He darted along round the corner
of the house, and fell against one of the windows, pushing it open. In
the drawing-room there seemed a number of people assembled, whom he saw
vaguely without paying any attention. Mr. and Mrs. Thynne, Warrender,
in a group, talking with their heads together, Mrs. Warrender standing
between them and the tranquil figure of Chatty, who sat at work at the
other end of the room, taking no part in the consultation of the others,
paying no heed to them. Chatty showed an almost ostentation of disregard,
of separation from the others, in her isolated place and the work with
which she was busy. She looked up when Geoff came stumbling through the
window, with a little alarm, but she did not look as if she expected any
one, as if she had heard who was so near at hand. The boy was covered
with dust and hot with haste, his forehead bathed in perspiration.
He called out to her almost before he was in the room: "Chatty! Mr.
Cavendish is outside at