But when the day’s work was done, and Bram started on the walk back to Hessel, the look of dogged attention which his face had worn during office hours relaxed into one of keen anxiety. He had been able, by force of will, to thrust into the background of his mind the one subject which was all-important to him. Now that he was again, for fifteen hours, a free man, his thoughts fastened once more on Claire and on the question--Would Christian, obedient to his father and to self-interest, abandon her, or would he not? Bram felt a dread of the answer. He would not allow to himself that he believed Christian capable of what he looked upon as an act of inconceivable baseness; but down at the bottom of his heart there was a dumb misgiving, an unacknowledged fear. And Bram, his thoughts stretching out beyond the limits he imposed upon them, asked himself what he should do for the best for the poor child, if she were left stranded, as Mr. Cornthwaite made no secret of intending. He had unconsciously assumed to himself, now that the image of Claire had been deposed from the high pedestal of his ideal, the attitude of guardian to this most helpless of creatures, taking upon himself in advance the position which her father ought to have held. If she were abandoned by her lover, it was he who would find her out, and care for her, and settle her in some place of safety. That she would never come back to the neighborhood of her own accord Bram felt sure. When Bram got back to Hessel, he called at once at the farm, with a lingering hope that something might have been heard of Claire, that she might have sent some message, written some letter to her father or to Joan. But she had not. He found Mr. Biron in the care of Joan, whose patience he tried severely by his fretfulness and irritability. The doctor had called again, and had expressed a growing fear of erysipelas, which had only increased the patient’s ill-temper, without making him any more careful of himself. He was drinking whisky and water when Bram came in, and Joan reported that he had been doing so all day, and that there was no reasoning with him or stopping him, even by using the authority of the doctor. Theodore was by this time in a maudlin and tearful condition, bewailing now the flight of his daughter, and now his own wounds, without ceasing. Bram did what he could to cheer him, and to persuade him to a more reasonable course of conduct, but the effect was hardly more than momentary. And on the following day his condition had undoubtedly become worse. Bram, however, was obliged to leave him to go to the office, where the day passed without incident. Mr. Cornthwaite had gone up to town on the previous night, and had not returned. Bram began to hope that Christian had refused to come back.