But two ladies had seen his approach from a window, and discussed him pretty freely before he arrived. "Who is this riding up the drive, Lallie?" "I don't know. Yes I do! It is Thorold Holt. What on earth does he want so early in the morning! You remember the Holts? Charles died six months ago. We were boys and girls together. Thorold was a great chum of mine when I was small. He used to stay over at the Manor a good deal. His father was a judge and widower. He married again, and was killed with his second wife in a railway smash in Italy. She was an extravagant girl, and left three small boys. There were so many debts that the children were in a bad way. "Thorold was a trump. He took charge of his small stepbrothers from the time he left school. Gave up the Army as a calling on which he had set his heart, and got a post in the city in some business firm where he toiled early and late to make money for the boys' schooling. They were young scamps, and the scrapes he pulled them out of, would make your hair stand on end! He put one in the Navy, the other in the Army, and the third went out to a tea plantation in India. He only got the last of them off his hands a year ago, and they cost him a pretty penny between them I can tell you! Couldn't marry because of them—so he always says, and now he's given up the idea. I believe he was smitten once by a girl who waited two years and then married some one else. Thorold has never had a life of his own. He was three years at the War and got badly wounded, but is nearly well now. He's a cheerful philosopher, and does me good when I'm in the blues. Don't go. I want you to know him." Mrs. Wharnecliffe, the mistress of the house, a bright, smiling young woman, turned to greet Thorold as he entered the room. "Vera, this is Mr. Thorold Holt. He's at the Manor now, over at Crowhurst. You haven't met Vera before, Thorold. She's an old school friend of mine, and is taking pity on my loneliness while Frank is away." Thorold made his greetings, then took up his position on the hearthrug, and looked at Mrs. Wharnecliffe with a whimsical smile. "Whenever disaster comes my way I always say to myself, 'It is not good that man should be alone,' and haste away to you." "What is it now? One of those boys again?" Vera Harrington had discreetly slipped out of the room. "A strange female was brought to me yesterday afternoon by Mrs. Gould. She's got a child—a girl who's a connection of Charles. You remember Lena Foster? a cousin on his mother's side whom he was wildly in love with all his life. It's her daughter. Lena is dead, and this good woman considers the girl should be enjoying the Manor, with its income, instead of me." "How preposterous and absurd! Lena treated Charles shamefully. She spoilt his life. And I was glad when her husband treated her as she had treated others." "Oh, how hard you women are!"