The next day he appeared punctually in her sitting-room, and she was even more struck than she had been on the previous day by the deep lines in his handsome face and the cloud which seemed to hang over him. She exerted herself as she had never done before to be lively and amusing; she had prepared the daintiest of luncheons, and before it was over she had the satisfaction of hearing him laugh like a man without a care. Not a particle of this delicate welcome was lost upon the keen man of the world, and, when luncheon was over, he said: “That is the first meal I have laughed over for more than two months--since you left the Grange, in fact.” “Is it?” said Annie, carelessly, as she refilled his glass. “Yes; and I suppose you know that as well as I do. You have the _ars celare artem_, like the accomplished actress you are off as well as on the stage; but I know you inveigled me here to-day with the base intention that your wit and your wine should get into my head, and make me forget for a little while my cares and my difficulties.” “And, if wit and wine never fulfilled a worse mission than that, they would not be so ill spoken of,” said Annie, gently. “Well said! Why did you leave us, Annie? You were the good genius of the Grange, and I am almost ready to think that, if you had never left it, we should all be there still.” “That’s right. Put all the blame upon a defenseless woman.” “I am glad you were not there at the end; it was a miserable time.” He was so deeply serious that Annie grew serious too. “Do you think I would have gone if I had known what was coming? Oh, George, you cannot think so ill of me!” “It is better for you that you did go then; you could not have prevented the crash. I had known it must come from the time my father died. It has been nothing but wave after wave of difficulty, and getting through or over them somehow ever since. I suppose it would have been better to give up long ago; but we were so hedged in on every side that the ruin was bound to be complete when it did come, and you are just the sort of woman to understand the feeling which forces one, with or against one’s will, to fight it out to the end, and stave off the fall into a broken-down swell as long as possible.” “George, George, how can you use such an absurd term? You, with your pluck, your patience!” “I’ve used them all up, Annie, in the one tussle.” “Then you must let them grow again, and go in for another tussle. You are young, and have courage and energy. If I were you, I would never rest until I had bought back the Grange.” “I don’t believe you would!” said George, admiringly, as he watched the proud flashing of her eyes and the varying expression of her face. “But I am not like that. I could fight on doggedly for something which was being dragged away from me; but I haven’t it in me to begin a battle on my own account.” “Then what do you mean to do?”