"No," Peckover answered, "I--I mean he is so devoid of feeling." The visitor caught up his crop and flourished it. "My poor sister is not, though," he roared, with a violence which even his possibly just resentment scarcely seemed to justify. "He promised to marry her, and then ran off. But we are on his track. Yes, I've got my broken-hearted sister waiting outside in the garden." Peckover felt that he must have a few minutes' solitude in which to think out the solution of the awkward problem. "Hadn't you better go and fetch her in, while I tell Lord Quorn?" he suggested. "I will," was the answer, given with a violent suddenness which made Peckover start. "And when I catch sight of his lordship," added the amiable zealot, "I'll astonish him. I'll--I'll make him jump." "You'll astonish a good many people besides if you do," murmured Peckover dryly, as the bully flung off through the window. Here was a pretty situation. Was the good time he was enjoying and promising himself to turn into ash like a pipe of tobacco? Already the _soi-disant_ Lord Quorn was complaining--and with some justice--that he was not having much fun for his money. Would he be likely to continue paying five thousand a year for the privilege of marrying an undesirable colonial maiden with the alternative of having his arms and legs snapped, possibly his nose slit and his eyes gouged out, if he refused? Not likely. Nor that he would care to wear the title when he found it carried so little fun and so many inconveniences with it. But what was he, Percy Peckover, to do? The situation baffled him. Temporize was all he could think of; temporize till he could hit on some expedient for ridding the position of this awkward element which threatened to spoil it. It was certainly exasperating just when he had settled down into a good thing to have to return to the hard world of work which he hated, poverty which he loathed, and his own identity of which he stood in terror. But this great noisy bully--ugh! how he would like to---- His bitter meditations were interrupted by footsteps on the path and next moment the _bête noire_ reappeared, this time with the lady. The first anxious glance at her did nothing to dissipate Peckover's apprehensions. A fine woman she was certainly, according to the popular acceptation of the term--tall and massive, but coarse and off-hand almost to vulgarity. She had challenging black eyes, a nose which the most casual glance could never overlook, and a determined mouth and jaw. Her hair was cut short like a man's, and in her hand she swung a substantial ash stick which she seemed quite capable of using to enforce any argument which verbal persuasion had failed to drive home. As to her dress, it was of masculine cut, the skirt being deeply edged with leather. Altogether she was a formidable and workmanlike young woman.