“No apologies are necessary,” the Vice-Consul said. He was very grave, his countenance had changed even since he came in, much more since yesterday, when his handsome head had been full of serene content. There was a deeply marked wrinkle in his forehead, and the lines at the corners of his mouth drooped heavily. He seemed to have aged half-a-dozen years. “There is no harm done; and where there is no offence there need be no excuse.” He said this with a sort of formality, such as he was in the habit of employing to troublesome British subjects, who got into many scrapes and gave much occupation to the representative of their country in pulling them out. It was a style that told (for the moment) upon such persons, and it came to his hand readily on an emergency. “I am glad to hear there is so little in it,” he added, rising. “Unfortunately my son-in-law is estranged from his family, and we know but little about them; so that I thought it just possible this might be some one--in whose well-being he was interested. It is I who should apologise for troubling you. I hope Sir John is none the worse for last night?” “He is not at all strong,” said Lady Brotherton. “It begins to be anxious work when we have long journeys to take. But he bears them better than anyone would think,” she added. “Oh, no, he is none the worse; I left him making a very good breakfast. He would have liked to see you, but I could not think to trouble you coming into a sick-room.” “No trouble at all,” Mr. Bonamy said, but he did not make any motion to go, neither did she wish him to do so, and they parted with mutual politenesses and professions of regret to have given each other trouble, and repeated protestations that it was no trouble at all. But when the Vice-Consul got out of doors, he went along slowly with a dejected tread, his head drooping, his eyes dim, and little in him of the dignified tranquillity becoming the representative of H.B.M. He was wounded in his pride, in his self-confidence, in the serenity of his judgment, in the force of his instincts. He was not going to give up Harry; Harry was Harry, whatever happened. But to think, after all, that he was _not a gentleman_, that the family which Mr. Bonamy had taken for granted was a family of laborious peasants, not of gentlefolks, that his relations were such as would not help him, but burden him in every particular of life--in short, that he himself had been entirely mistaken, and that he had given his daughter to a nobody, went to his very heart. He had the generosity to reflect that Harry had said little, that it was he who had jumped at conclusions and given him credit for connections which he had never directly claimed. It was he, rather than Harry, who was the fallen personage, fallen from all certainty, from all faith in the future, in himself. He would say nothing about it, he thought, to anyone. Why disturb poor Rita, who need never know that her husband’s father, or uncle, or near relation was a