your
lordship. I am sorry that my visit has been mistaken."

"I don't see that there is anything to make a fuss about."

"It shall not be repeated, my lord." And so he left the room.

Why on earth had the man come back to England, bringing a foreign woman
and an Italian brat home with him, if he intended to make the place too
hot to hold him by insulting everybody around him? This was the first
question the Dean asked himself, when he found himself outside the
house. And what could the man hope to gain by such insolence? Instead
of taking the road through the park back to Brotherton, he went on to
Cross Hall. He was desirous of learning what were the impressions, and
what the intentions, of the ladies there. Did this madman mean to
quarrel with his mother and sisters as well as with his other
neighbours? He did not as yet know what intercourse there had been
between the two houses, since the Marquis had been at Manor Cross. And
in going to Cross Hall in the midst of all these troubles, he was no
doubt actuated in part by a determination to show himself to be one of
the family. If they would accept his aid, no one would be more loyal
than he to these ladies. But he would not be laid aside. If anything
unjust were intended, if any fraud was to be executed, the person most
to be injured would be that hitherto unborn grandson of his for whose
advent he was so anxious. He had been very free with his money, but he
meant to have his money's worth.

At Cross Hall he found Canon Holdenough's wife and the Canon. At the
moment of his entrance old Lady Brotherton was talking to the
clergyman, and Lady Alice was closeted in a corner with her sister
Sarah. "I would advise you to go just as though you had heard nothing
from us," Lady Sarah had said. "Of course he would be readier to
quarrel with me than with any one. For mamma's sake I would go away for
a time if I had anywhere to go to."

"Come to us," Lady Alice had said. But Lady Sarah had declared that she
would be as much in the way at Brotherton as at Cross Hall, and had
then gone on to explain that it was Lady Alice's duty to call on her
sister-in-law, and that she must do so,--facing the consequences
whatever they might be. "Of course mamma could not go till he had been
here," Lady Sarah added; "and now he has told mamma not to go at all.
But that is nothing to you."

"I have just come from the house," said the Dean.

"Did you see him?" asked the old woman with awe.