"Mr. Hanmer managed, then, to discover you? Two women have called. . . . I thought it better, their errand being what it was, to show them out." "I can guess it, perhaps," Ruth caught her up with a wan smile. "They managed to talk with him before he gave them their dismissal." "Forgive me. I had not thought them capable--" "There is nothing to forgive," Ruth assured her. "They probably told the truth, and the fault is mine." Miss Quiney, incredulous, slowly raised her face from the cushions and stared. "Yes," repeated Ruth, "the fault is entirely mine." "But--but," stammered Mrs. Harry. Ruth had turned away towards the window, and the honest wife stared after her, against the light. "But he will make it all right when he returns." She started, of a sudden. Cunningly as Ruth had dressed herself, Mrs. Harry's eyes guessed the truth. "You have written to him?" "No." "He guesses, at least?" "No." "Then you are writing to him? There is enough time." "No." Their eyes met. Ruth's asked, "And if I do not, will you?" Mrs. Harry's met them for a few seconds and were abased. No words passed between these two. "And as for my Tatty," said Ruth lightly, stepping to the sofa, "she is not to write. I command her." Chapter V. A PROLOGUE TO NOTHING. Sir Oliver wrote cheerfully. His lawsuit was prospering; his prompt invasion of the field had disconcerted Lady Caroline and her advisers. He had discovered fresh evidence of the late Sir Thomas's insanity. His own lawyers were sanguine. They assured him that, at the worst, the Courts would set aside the '46 will, and fall back for a compromise on that of '44, which gave the woman a life-interest only in the Downton estates. But the case would not be taken this side of the Long Vacation. . . . (It was certain, then, that he could not return in time.) He had visited Bath and spent some weeks with his mother. He devoted a page or two to criticism of that fashionable city. It was clear he had picked up many threads of his younger days; had renewed old acquaintances and made a hundred new ones. Play, he wrote, was a craze in England; the stakes frightened a home-comer from New England. For his part, he gamed but moderately.