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Rh 'His being here is no trouble to me, of course,' she said.

'Of course not. You tell him so, and he'll stay,' said the judge. 'I want to see him to-morrow myself;—about this business of poor Lady Mason's.'

Immediately after that he met his son. And Augustus also told him that Graham was going.

'Oh no; he's not going at all,' said the judge. 'I've settled that with your mother.'

'He's very anxious to be off,' said Augustus gravely.

'And why? Is there any reason?'

'Well; I don't know.' For a moment he thought he would tell his father the whole story; but he reflected that his doing so would be hardly fair towards his friend. 'I don't know that there is any absolute reason; but I'm quite sure that he is very anxious to go.'

The judge at once perceived that there was something in the wind, and during that hour in which the pheasant was being discussed up in Graham's room, he succeeded in learning the whole from his wife. Dear, good, loving wife! A secret of any kind from him was an impossibility to her, although that secret went no further than her thoughts.

'The darling girl is so anxious about him, that—that I'm afraid,' said she.

'He's by no means a bad sort of man, my love,' said the judge.

'But he's got nothing—literally nothing,' said the mother.

'Neither had I, when I went a wooing,' said the judge. 'But, nevertheless, I managed to have it all my own way.'

'You don't mean really to make a comparison?' said Lady Staveley. 'In the first place you were at the top of your profession.'

'Was I? If so I must have achieved that distinction at a very early age.' And then he kissed his wife very affectionately. Nobody was there to see, and under such circumstances a man may kiss his wife even though he be a judge, and between fifty and sixty years old. After that he again spoke to his son, and in spite of the resolves which Augustus had made as to what friendship required of him, succeeded in learning the whole truth.

Late in the evening, when all the party had drunk their cups of tea, when Lady Staveley was beginning her nap, and Augustus was making himself agreeable to Miss Furnival—to the great annoyance of his mother, who half rousing herself every now and then, looked sorrowfully at what was going on with her winking eyes,—the judge contrived to withdraw with Madeline into the small drawing-room, telling her as he put his arm round her waist, that he had a few words to say to her.

'Well, papa,' said she, as at his bidding she sat herself down beside him on the sofa. She was frightened, because such sum-