It was some time before Mrs Woodburn recovered her senses; but in the meantime her brother wrote Lucilla his note, and in sight of his sister's agitation felt himself perfectly composed and serene and manful. It even made him complaisant to feel the difference that there was, when the emergency really arrived at last, between his own manly calm and her womanish panic. But then it was for herself that she was afraid, lest her husband should find out that she was not one of the Cavendishes. "You must have been giving yourself airs on the subject," Mr Cavendish said, as he fastened up his note. "I never was so foolish as that, for my part;" and naturally the more he admired his own steadiness and courage, the steadier and more courageous he grew--or at least so he felt for the moment, with her terror before his eyes. "If you do go," said Mrs Woodburn at last, "oh, Harry, for goodness' sake, mind that you deny _everything_. If you confess to anything, it will all be proved against you; don't allow a single thing that's said to you. It is a mistaken identity, you know--that is what it is; there was a case in the papers just the other day. Oh, Harry, for Heaven's sake don't be weak!--deny everything; you don't know anything about it--you don't know what they mean--you can't understand----" "It is I that have to do it, Nelly," said Mr Cavendish, more and more tranquil and superior. "You must let me do it my way;" and he was very kind and reassuring to her in his composure. This was how things ought to be; and it was astonishing how much he gained in his own mind and estimation by Mrs Woodburn's panic. Being the stronger vessel, he was of course superior to all that. But somehow when he had got back to his own house again, and had no longer the spectacle of his sister's terror before him, the courage began to ooze out of Mr Cavendish's finger-points; he tried hard to stimulate himself up to the same point, and to regain that lofty and assured position; but as the evening approached, matters grew rather worse than better. He did not turn and flee, because flight, in the present alarmed and touchy state of public opinion, would have equally been destruction; and nobody could answer for it how far, if he failed to obey her, Miss Marjoribanks's discretion might go. And thus the eventful evening fell, and the sun went down, which was to Mr Cavendish as if it might be the last sun he should ever (metaphorically) see--while, in the meantime, all the other people dressed for dinner as if nothing was going to happen, and as if it was merely a Thursday like other Thursdays, which was coming to Grange Lane. _Chapter XXXI_