eturned the New Year had commenced.

He went down to Brotherton to bring his wife up to London, but met her
at the deanery, refusing to go to the house. When the Marchioness heard
of this,--and it became impossible to keep it from her,--she declared
that it was with herself that her son George must have quarrelled. Then
it was necessary to tell her the whole truth, or nearly the whole.
Brotherton had behaved so badly to his brother that Lord George had
refused to enter even the park. The poor old woman was very wretched,
feeling in some dim way that she was being robbed of both her sons. "I
don't know what I've done," she said, "that everything should be like
this. I'm sure I did all I could for them; but George never would
behave properly to his elder brother, and I don't wonder that
Brotherton feels it. Brotherton always had so much feeling. I don't
know why George should be jealous because Popenjoy was born. Why
shouldn't his elder brother have a son of his own like anybody else?"
And yet whenever she saw Mary, which she did for two or three hours
every day, she was quite alive to the coming interest. It was suggested
to her that she should be driven into Brotherton, so that she might see
George at the deanery; but her objection to go to the Dean's house was
as strong as was that of Lord George to come to his brother's.

Mary was of course delighted when the hour of her escape came. It had
seemed to her that there was especial cruelty in keeping her at Manor
Cross while her husband was up in town. Her complaints on this head had
of course been checked by her husband's unexpected journey to Naples,
as to which she had hardly heard the full particulars till she found
herself in the train with him. "After going all that way he wouldn't
see you!"

"He neither would see me or send me any message."

"Then he must be a bad man."

"He has lived a life of self-indulgence till he doesn't know how to
control a thought or a passion. It was something of that kind which was
meant when we were told about the rich man and the eye of the needle."

"But you will be a rich man soon, George."

"Don't think of it, Mary; don't anticipate it. God knows I have never
longed for it. Your father longs for it."

"Not for his own sake, George."

"He is wrong all the same. It will not make you happier,--nor me."

"But, George, when you thought that that little boy was not Popenjoy
you were as anxious as papa to find it all out."

"Ri