“I hope you do, Mr. Brown,” said Mrs. Fry. And this little passage of arms restored the equilibrium of these two important members of the household. But when it became known in the village and at the station, where the great cases which had been lying at the latter place were ordered by Sir Augustus to be carried to the house, and his portmanteau brought from the Markham Arms, and when slowly, through a hundred rills of conflicting information, the news got spread about the country till it flooded, like a rushing torrent, all the great houses and all the outlying villages--drove the Trevors and the Westlands half out of their senses, and communicated a sudden vertigo to the entire neighbourhood--words fail us to describe the commotion. Everybody had known there was something wrong, but who could have imagined anything so sweeping and complete. “You see now, mamma, how right I was to let Paul alone,” Ada Westland said with her frank cynicism. “We must see that your papa calls upon Sir Augustus,” that far-seeing mother replied. As for old Admiral Trevor, who was getting more and more into his dotage every day, he ordered his carriage at once to go out and “putsh shtop to it.” “Will Markham ought to be ashamed of himself,” the old sailor said. The same impulse moved the inhabitants of the rectory, both father and daughter. Mr. Stainforth did nothing but go about his garden all day wringing his hands and crying, “Dear! dear!” and trying to recollect something about it, some way of proving an _alibi_ or getting evidence to show that it was impossible. He, too, felt that it was his duty to put a stop to it. And as for Dolly, what could she do but cry her pretty eyes out, and wish, oh so vainly, that she had a hundred thousand pounds that she might give it all to Paul! CHAPTER VIII.