"It went out by itself, Doctor. We were at close quarters in the village of Champigny when we made our sortie on the 1st of December, so the ball went right through, and almost by a miracle, as the surgeon said, without injuring anything vital. There is the dinner-bell, Doctor. I will go into your surgery and wash my hands. I remember the ways of the place, you see." During dinner-time the talk was entirely of the siege. When the meal was over, the doctor and Cuthbert went to the former's study, where the doctor lighted a cigar and Cuthbert his pipe. "How are they getting on at Fairclose?" Cuthbert asked, carelessly. The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "I should say they heartily regret having changed their quarters. Of course it was her doing that they did so. She is a curious mixture of cleverness and silliness. Her weak point is her ambition to be in county society, and to drop the town altogether. She has always been hankering for that. No doubt it is partly for the sake of the girls--at least she always lays it to that. But when I used to attend them as babies, she was always complaining to me that the air of the town did not suit her. However, so far from gaining by the exchange, she has lost. "As the leading solicitor here, and I may say the leading man in the place, Brander went a good deal into the county. Of course his wife did belong to a county family, and no doubt that helped open the doors of many good houses to him. Well, he is in the county now, but he is not of the county. There was naturally a lot of bad feeling about the smash of that bank. A good many men besides yourself were absolutely ruined, and as everyone banked there, there was scarce a gentleman in the county or a tradesman in the town, who was not hit more or less severely. The idea was that Brander, whose name had been a tower of strength to the bank, had been grossly negligent in allowing its affairs to get into such a state. I think they were wrong, for I imagine from what I heard, that Brander was correct in saying that he was not in any way in the counsels of the directors, but confined himself to strictly legal business, such as investigating titles and drawing up mortgages, and that he was only present at the Board meetings when he was consulted on some legal questions. "Still there is no stemming the tide of popular opinion. Abchester demanded a scapegoat. Cumming had disappeared, the five directors were ruined, and so they fell upon Brander. He could have got over that--indeed he has got over it as far as the town is concerned--but his purchase of Fairclose set the county against him. They considered that he got it for L20,000 below its value, which was true enough; the other estates that went into the market were all sold at an equal depreciation, but it was felt somehow that he at least ought not to have profited by the disaster, and altogether there was so strong a feeling against him that the county turned its back on Fairclose."