"Very good, Gordon," returned his friend. "Then, if you want her to marry you, and you are positively sure you would marry her if she hadn't sixpence--which is the extreme proposition you have stated here three times over, and which is one of those things of which no man can be more than comparatively sure--ask her to-morrow, or on the first opportunity, and come and tell me the result. And now I must turn you out. I have an appointment with Claypole in five minutes, and some papers to look over before he comes." Mr. Frere went gaily away, and Charles Yeldham did not turn immediately to the papers which lay upon his desk. He walked up and down the room, his hands deep in his pockets, and his head bent. At length he sat down with an impatient sigh and a muttered sentence: "To think that fourteen months ago he considered himself madly in love with Katharine Guyon! What a blessing it must be to a man to be endowed with the nature of a butterfly!" Gordon Frere's modest statement of his hopes and expectations was justified by the result; and the flagging spirits of society at the end of the season were raised by learning that a marriage was "arranged" between Miss Gould, who was of course beautiful and accomplished for the occasion, and Mr. Gordon-Frere, whose ancestral glories and diplomatic connections were also duly paraded. Katharine had left town some little time before this announcement had supplied a fresh topic for discussion to the few scores of people who knew or felt any curiosity about the respective parties. Her premature abandonment of the delights of London arose from the condition of her husband's health. Robert had been constantly looking, and occasionally complaining of feeling, ill, for several weeks; and at length had acknowledged to his sister that he exceedingly desired the rest and tranquillity of the country. "I don't think he is so much ill as worried," Ellen had said to her sister-in-law. And the simple girl was right. Robert was worried--worried about money-matters, worried about Mr. Guyon's affairs, and his insatiable, irrepressible scheming. But, worse than all, he was worried by self-reproach.