“I dare say you have but one feeling in your heart for a poor, weak-minded wretch like me, that of utter unmitigated contempt. I don’t attempt to justify myself, for under present circumstances it would be impossible. I am only writing to enclose a small packet—a blue bow of ribbon. You will know, old fellow, to whom it belonged, and why I am sending it to you. I couldn’t find it in my heart to put it behind the fire. “Ever yours, “FRANK VARLEY.” “Poor Varley,” said Lord Hardcastle, when he read this. “He spent his strength for nought, and gave in before the race was half run! And yet who am I that I should pity or blame him? The end alone will show whose life has been best worth living!” And now the preparations for the journey to France were completed, and one dull misty November afternoon, Mr. Warden and Lord Hardcastle said a long good-bye to the High Elms. Very damp, very cold and dreary the old house looked as they turned the corner of the steep avenue. “Not in this world,” said Mr. Warden, mournfully, “shall I call any place home again.” What could Lord Hardcastle say in reply? He clasped his old friend’s hand with a firmer, tighter clasp, while the thought ran through his own mind— “What will our coming back here be like?” Early in the evening they arrived in London. The preparations for their journey had been very simple. No servants, very little luggage, and their destination even kept secret. Mr. Warden had informed his agents he would be travelling through Europe for some months for his health, and had given various _postes restantes_ in France to which his letters were to be sent. He would advise them, he said, of any change in his plans should his inclination lead him in any other direction. It was not without serious thought and anxiety that Lord Hardcastle had undertaken this journey. There could be no doubt that Mr. Warden’s strength had given way very much lately, and it was incurring a heavy responsibility to induce a man at his age, and with his broken health, to go so far on what might prove to be a fool’s errand after all. “But,” reasoned Hardcastle, “he will certainly die if he remain in his own desolate home, brooding over his sorrows. Action and movement will do more for him than anything else, and if we can but lift the cloud from the dead girl’s grave, we shall both feel our life has not been spent for nought.”