"Nothing's incredible of an Ancram in the way of lying," returned the great lady of that family with much coolness. "This young jackanapes has got into a scrape down at What-do-ye-call-it. Things have gone wrong in the office--(I'll be bound he don't mind his business a bit)--he and his wife have got into debt between them. He don't like the place; and after bothering your life out for money, he comes off here without 'with your leave' or 'by your leave,' and asks to be sent abroad. That's my notion of the matter. And any way, if I were you, Valentine, I should take no sort of action, nor commit myself in any way, until I'd had Castalia's version of the story." Lord Seely pressed his hand to his forehead, and writhed on his chair. "I wish to God that I could go to the place and speak with Castalia myself!" he cried. "There are things that cannot be written. But here I am a prisoner. It is a dreadful misfortune." "_I_ can't undertake to go trapesing down there in this weather," exclaimed my lady. "And, besides, I wouldn't leave you just now." Lord Seely by no means wished that his wife should interfere personally in the matter. He well knew that nothing but discord was likely to arise from any interview between Castalia and her aunt. "There is no one I could send," he murmured. "No one I could trust." "No, no! It would never do to send anybody at all. This kind of family wash had better be done in private. I tell you what you do, Valentine--you just dictate a letter to me to be sent to Castalia. Send it off _at once_. When does Ancram return? To-morrow? Very well, then. Send it off _at once_, so that it shall reach Whitford before he does." "Why so, Belinda?" asked my lord anxiously. "Why so? Dear me, Valentine; how st----unsuspicious you are! If Ancram was there when the letter arrived, do you suppose she would ever get it?" Lord Seely stared at the florid, fat, unfeeling face before him, with a sensation of oppression and dismay. How was it possible to attribute such actions and motives to persons of one's own family with an air of such matter-of-fact indifference? It was not the first time that his wife's coarseness of feeling had been thrust on his observation to the shocking of his own finer taste and sentiment--for my lord was a gentleman at heart--but this was an amount of phlegmatic cynicism which hurt him to the core. He could not forget that it was his wife who had promoted the marriage of Castalia with this young man. It was his wife who had declared that the Honourable Miss Kilfinane was not likely to make a better match. It was his wife who had urged him to put young Errington into the Whitford Post-office, declaring that the place was in every way a suitable one for him. And now it was his wife who coolly described Ancram as a wretch, full of the vilest duplicity!