‘DEAR MR. SCRATCHELL,--I am going abroad, most likely for a long time. Please receive the rents, as usual, attend to all repairs, and pay in all moneys to the bank, as heretofore. I shall be obliged if you will give the servants whatever allowance is liberal and proper for board wages. This had better be paid monthly, in advance. Please see that the house and grounds are kept in good order, and that all my subscriptions to local and other charities are regularly paid. ‘Mr. Dulcimer is to have any money he may require for his poor.’ ‘Yours very truly, ‘BEATRIX HAREFIELD.’ ‘Business-like,’ said Mr. Scratchell, ‘but I’m afraid the poor young woman is not quite right in her mind. Do you know what she has done about the mortgages on your property?’ ‘Yes,’ answered Kenrick. ‘You don’t suppose I am going to keep the money?’ ‘I don’t suppose you’d be so demented as to give it back,’ said Mr. Scratchell. ‘You’d better keep it. If she doesn’t make ducks and drakes of it one way, she will another. What was your quarrel about?’ ‘Quarrel,’ echoed Kenrick, and then it occurred to him that it was just as well to let this vulgarian Scratchell believe that he and Beatrix had quarrelled. How could a piece of such common clay as Mr. Scratchell comprehend the finer feelings of human porcelain? He only thought it cracked. There was nothing more to be discovered at the Water House. Beatrix and her companion had gone. That was all. Miss Harefield had made her arrangements with coolness and promptitude. It might be just possible to follow her. But to what end? Kenrick went in quest of Cyril. After a good deal of inquiry he found him with a bedridden old woman, listening to a doleful story of the winter’s sufferings. ‘I want to talk to you, Cyril,’ said Kenrick, and, with a gentle apology, Cyril cut short the dame’s rambling account of her bodily ills. ‘What is the matter, Ken?’ asked Cyril, when they were outside in the windy road. ‘You look as pale as a ghost.’ ‘There is to be no marriage. Beatrix has gone away--and you know all about it. You planned it together yesterday when you met in the churchyard.’ ‘Upon my honour, Kenrick, I know nothing,’ answered the other, solemnly. ‘Why should I believe you? She, whom I thought the noblest of women, has fooled and jilted me. In whose honour am I to believe after that?’ ‘Kenrick, I am deeply sorry for you.’ ‘Pray spare me that. Your pity would be the last drop of gall in my cup. Will you swear to me that you do not know where she is gone--that you had nothing to do with her going?’ ‘Directly, nothing,’ answered Cyril, very pale. His conscience smote him for that scene of yesterday. He had given the reins to passion, he, a man who had hitherto shaped his life upon principle. He felt himself guilty.