"I declare, if this isn't another of those vile half-castes! We shall have the whole population of Vepery landing at our door!" he muttered, hurrying forward and glancing with an air of insolent chilliness at the stooping figure, from whose lined face the gracious smile had hardly faded. "What, may I ask, is the reason of your call? I don't happen to have the----" "the pleasure" he was about to say, but with a cruel smile changed it to: "I have not the need of your acquaintance!" The old man's face became grey and stern. For a moment he seemed about to speak, then, shaking his head sadly, he walked away in silence. "Oh, Alfred, how could you--how could you speak so to him?" cried Hester, who had turned in the hall when she heard her husband's voice. "That is Mr. Morpeth, Mrs. Fellowes' friend, and mine too now." "Yours is he? That he shan't be! I tell you what it is, Hester. I'll not have you encouraging these half-castes--male or female--that man Morpeth or anybody else--to come and crawl about my verandah on any pretext whatever! It's sheer forwardness! The fact is I can't afford to risk my position by mixing with them in any way. That's the long and the short of it!" They had gone forward and were now standing on the threshold of the darkened library. Mr. Rayner could not see his wife's face, or perhaps he would not have gone so far. She covered it with her hands and stood mute for some moments, then with a shudder, she said: "Oh, Alfred, there's something very wrong about this! You cannot be in earnest! I never thought----" Suddenly Hester's voice broke and she turned away and mounted the staircase. Her husband stood looking at her retreating figure with a half repentant air, then he shrugged his shoulders and bit his lip, and seating himself at his writing-table began to fumble among his papers.