She rose to join her brother with half her trouble gone. "Who has been here?" he asked, as she entered the room. "Oh, brother, such a wonderful thing! No sooner had my telegram to Mr. Stevens gone than he himself appeared. He had heard something and came to find out what we knew." Mrs. Dorriman gave a sigh of relief as she sat down. "Who wrote to him?" asked Mr. Sandford; "does Grace know him?" "I do not think so; but Sir Albert Gerald wrote. He was corresponding with him on business." "Sir Albert Gerald?" exclaimed Mr. Sandford; "isn't he the man who was nearly killed at Lornbay?" "And that Margaret found? Yes," said Mrs. Dorriman. "What in the world can he be doing there?" said Mr. Sandford; "he had better have kept away." "But if he helps Margaret?" said Mrs. Dorriman; "it is a great thing for her to have a friend near her." "That may or may not be," said Mr. Sandford, gloomily; and then, fixing his eyes on his sister, he said, "You are very innocent, Anne, but do you think a young fellow like Sir Albert Gerald a safe friend for a beautiful young girl like Margaret, who is unhappily married?" "But her marriage was not your doing, you tried to persuade her against it. I said all I could, she has only herself to blame," said Mrs. Dorriman, severely. "Do not make me more ashamed of myself than I am already," he said, bitterly. "I liked Margaret, and wished to keep her with me. She is like ... but Grace. I did originally persuade him to come here, I did not care about _her_; and I should not have minded her unhappiness. Then I was so angry that I made life unbearable for her; and if evil comes of this can I hold myself blameless?" He spoke with great agitation, and Mrs. Dorriman felt powerless to say a word to comfort him. She knew that there was truth in his way of putting it, and that in this way he was to blame. "One thing more," he said, turning suddenly towards her, "and there is no reason now why you should not know it. When I asked Drayton here I did not know what I learnt afterwards from Stevens, and when he told me it was too late; I did not know that his mother died insane, and that he himself had been under restraint. I only knew this after that poor child's marriage, and what could I do?" A cry of horror burst from Mrs. Dorriman. "Ah, Anne! You may well be horrified, but can you not see that all this makes me absolutely hate myself? I assure you when I lie down at night, and when I unclose my eyes in the morning, this is the first miserable thought that haunts me, and will haunt me to my dying day." "Can we do nothing?" she sobbed; "it is so dreadful to think of her so far from us and so helpless."