“So that he's gone, I am contented. Down in the country I don't care a snap what people may say; but as long as he stayed here, there was always a chance of his meeting my uncle again, or of my uncle going to see him. You see, father, I was obliged to put things in the best light possible, and I should not at all like to have Walker referred to again.” “Ah, I see, Fred. I thought you must have made rather a strong case for yourself with the old man, or he would never have come round so easily. When you said you would give a thousand pounds to him to go away at once, I had an idea you must be mightily afraid of his meeting Captain Bradshaw again. Well, Fred, you have saved your thousand pounds, but you'll hear more of him yet before he's done, or I am mistaken.” “It is a respite at any rate,” Fred said. “If he comes and bothers me in the country, I'll get him shut up as a lunatic. It won't cost a thousand pounds to do that,” and he laughed unpleasantly. “I shall go back to Cromer by the twelve o'clock train. I shall be up in a week at the latest. I suppose there is nothing particular you want to speak to me about before I go? I have not above a quarter of an hour to spare.” The quarter of an hour was spent in conversation upon business matters, and then Fred Bingham started again for Cromer, in very much higher spirits than he had felt on his journey up the day before. Fred Bingham had not calculated erroneously when he considered Alice Heathcote to be his most dangerous enemy. At first she had been completely stunned by the blow, and upon leaving her uncle, had gone up to her own room had thrown herself upon her bed, too bewildered, too stricken down even to cry, and lay there quiet and white, with her hand pressed to her forehead. “Frank, wicked! Frank, a scoundrel! It could not be, it could not be.” And yet her uncle who knew far more of the world than she did, and who had loved Frank too, seemed to have no doubt, no question upon the subject; nor, as she thought it over and over, did a single ray of hope present itself to her. That she had loved in vain, that he had married another, had been hard to bear, but that was as nothing to this. To know that the man in whom she had put all her faith, and trust, and love, was, after all, a bad, base man, was almost bewildering. If he were false, who could be true? And yet, although she in vain tried to find any solution—any escape—from this dreadful accusation, she did not really believe it. Her instinct seemed to tell her that Frank could never have acted altogether in this way. He might have been wicked and wrong—she feared there could be no doubt about that—but he never could have been so deliberately base as they said. Yet there was but one explanation which could in any way lessen his offence, an explanation which involved a grievous suspicion of another, and that other now lying dead. Still, Alice did not know her, and she