When Janet was alone in her room she remembered again, with pained bewilderment, that Fred had actually believed that she had destroyed that missing paper. It did not distress her that Monkey Brand evidently believed the same. She would, of course, tell him that he was mistaken. _But Fred!_ He ought to have known better. Her thoughts returned speedily to her brother's future. He would settle down now, and be a good man, and marry the eldest Miss Ford. She felt happier about him than she had done since Cuckoo's death. Her constant prayer, that he might repent and lead a new life, had evidently been heard. As she closed her eyes she said to herself, "I daresay Fred and Venetia will be married the same day as George and me." * * * * * Monkey Brand appeared at Ivy Cottage a few days later. Janet was in the field with Fred, taking the setter puppies for a run, when the "Trefusis Arms" dog-cart from Mudbury drove up, and Nemesis, in the shape of Monkey Brand, got slowly down from it, wrong leg first. Even in the extreme heat Monkey Brand wore a high hat and a long buttoned-up frock-coat and varnished boots. As he came towards them in the sunshine, there was a rigid, controlled desolation in his yellow lined face, which made Janet feel suddenly ashamed of her happiness in her own love. "I had better go," said Fred hurriedly. "I don't want to be uncivil to the brute in my own house." "Go!" said Janet. "But, of course, you must stop. Mr Brand has come down on purpose to see us." She went forward to meet him, and, as he took her hand somewhat stiffly, he met the tender sympathy in her clear eyes, and winced under it. His face became a shade less rigid. He looked shrunk and exhausted, as if he had undergone the extreme rigour of a biting frost. Perhaps he had. "I have come to see you on business," he said to Janet, hardly returning Fred's half nervous, half defiant greeting. Janet led the way into the little parlour, and they sat down in silence. Fred sat down near the door, and began picking at the rose in his buttonhole. Monkey Brand held his hat in his hand. He took off one black glove, dropped it into his hat, and looked fixedly at it. The cloud on Janet's horizon lay heavy over her whole sky. A single petal, loosened by a shaking hand, fell from Fred's rose on to the floor. "I am sure, Miss Black," said Monkey Brand, "that you will offer me an explanation respecting your visit to my flat when my wife was dying." "I went up at her wish," said Janet, breathing hard. She seemed to see again Cuckoo's anguished fading eyes fixed upon her. "Why?" "She asked me to go and see if her picture was safe." "I had already told her it was safe." Janet did not answer. The rose in Fred's buttonhole fell petal by petal. Monkey Brand's voice had hardened when he spoke again.