My friend put his two hands to his face. “Oh, oh, oh!” he groaned while Miss Searle crossed rapidly and dropped on her knees at his side. “Go to bed, you fool!” shrieked her brother. “Dear cousin,” she said, “it’s cruel you’re to have so to think of us!” “Oh I shall think of _you_ as you’d like!” He laid a hand on her head. “I believe you’ve done nothing wrong,” she brought bravely out. “I’ve done what I could,” Mr. Searle went on--“but it’s arrant folly to pretend to friendship when this abomination lies between us. You were welcome to my meat and my wine, but I wonder you could swallow them. The sight spoiled _my_ appetite!” cried the master of Lackley with a laugh. “Proceed with your trumpery case! My people in London are instructed and prepared.” “I shouldn’t wonder if your case had improved a good deal since you gave it up,” I was moved to observe to Searle. “Oho! you don’t feign ignorance then?” and our insane entertainer shook his shining head at me. “It’s very kind of you to give it up! Perhaps you’ll also give up my sister!” Searle sat staring in distress at his adversary. “Ah miserable man--I thought we had become such beautiful friends.” “Boh, you hypocrite!” screamed our host. Searle seemed not to hear him. “Am I seriously expected,” he slowly and painfully pursued, “to defend myself against the accusation of any real indelicacy--to prove I’ve done nothing underhand or impudent? Think what you please!” And he rose, with an effort, to his feet. “I know what _you_ think!” he added to Miss Searle. The wheels of the carriage resounded on the gravel, and at the same moment a footman descended with our two portmanteaux. Mr. Tottenham followed him with our hats and coats. “Good God,” our host broke out again, “you’re not going away?”--an ejaculation that, after all that had happened, had the grandest comicality. “Bless my soul,” he then remarked as artlessly, “of course you’re going!” “It’s perhaps well,” said Miss Searle with a great effort, inexpressibly touching in one for whom great efforts were visibly new and strange, “that I should tell you what my poor little note contained.” “That matter of your note, madam,” her brother interrupted, “you and I will settle together!” “Let me imagine all sorts of kind things!” Searle beautifully pleaded. “Ah too much has been imagined!” she answered simply. “It was only a word of warning. It was to tell you to go. I knew something painful was coming.” He took his hat. “The pains and the pleasures of this day,” he said to his kinsman, “I shall equally never forget. Knowing you,” and he offered his hand to Miss Searle, “has been the pleasure of pleasures. I hoped something more might have come of it.” “A monstrous deal too much has come of it!” Mr. Searle irrepressibly declared.