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 I am concerned,” he said. “While I am above ground your prospects need stand in your way no longer. But you haven’t answered my question, which I’ll put in another way. How is she likely to take my appearance on the scene?”

“I’m afraid she’s rather prejudiced. Her brother George didn’t love you much, you know, and she is greatly cut up by his loss,” Forsyth replied, with the dogged manner of the honest man who has to say a disagreeable thing. “I don’t think that you need be under any apprehension about her staying on at Beaumanoir House when you show up. To be candid, I saw her yesterday, and she said she should begin packing as soon as she was sure that you hadn’t been drowned on the voyage home.”

“Good girl!” ejaculated the Duke. “The unexpressed hope did her much honor, only it’s a pity it didn’t come off. Now, Alec, if you’ll see her first—she needn’t see me at all if she doesn’t wish to—and tell her from me that she’s not to hurry out of the house, because I’m going to oscillate between Prior’s Tarrant and a hotel for the present, I shall be immensely obliged to you.”