Strolling hither and thither, just as his steps led him, for in truth he had no purpose just then, so intense was his mental distress, Mr. Grubb found himself somehow in Jermyn Street. He was passing the Cavendish Hotel, his eyes nowhere, when a hand was laid upon his arm. A little lady in a close bonnet and black veil, standing at the hotel entrance, had arrested him. "Were you going to pass me, Francis Grubb?" "Miss Upton!" he exclaimed, coming with an effort, out of his wilderness, and clasping her offered hand. "I did not see you; I was buried in thought." "In deep thought, as it seemed to me," rejoined Miss Upton, regarding his face with a meaning look. "Come upstairs to my sitting-room." "Are you staying here?" he asked. "Only until tomorrow afternoon. I came from home this morning. Sit down and take lunch with me," she added, removing her bonnet. "It is ready, you perceive. I told them to have it on the table by one o'clock. They are punctual, and so am I." "You have been out?" "Only to Chenevix House. I came up on business of my own, but I wanted to see the Acorns, so I drove there at once, after reporting myself here to the hotel people, to whom I wrote yesterday to secure my rooms. No meat! Why, what do you live upon?" Something like a faint smile parted his lips. "Thank you--no, not today. I have no appetite." "_Try_," she kindly whispered, leaning forward and laying her hand for a moment upon his. "Other men have had to bear as much before you." So, then, she knew it! A vivid red dyed his brow. How painful it was, this allusion to it, even from her. "You have heard it?" he breathed. "I heard of the trouble about the cheque last week from the Rector, during a flying visit he had to pay Netherleigh. The man was in terrible distress, hardly knowing whether his son was guilty or not guilty. A little further news dropped out later, and yesterday Charles was brought home by his father and stepmother; his name cleared, but some one else's mentioned." She paused a moment. Mr. Grubb said nothing. "When I reached Lady Acorn's this morning, she was alone--and in a state, not of temper, but of real, genuine distress," continued Miss Upton. "I told her I had come to hear the whole truth about this miserable business, and she told me all, from beginning to end. She is full of wrath and bitterness: and who can wonder?" "Against me?" "Against you! No. Against Adela. She did not spare her daughter in the recital. She said that Mr. Grubb--you--were at that moment with Lord Acorn, negotiating, she believed, the articles of a separation. Was it so?" "Yes. They are arranged." "Alas! I have long foreseen that it might come to it. Before there was any notion of this last terrible offence of hers, I thought the day of retribution must surely come, unless she mended her ways. But we will say no more, now. Adela is my god-daughter, and I will do what I can for her, though I would rather have seen her in her grave."