The conclusion of the matter was that for that night he went to the Arden Arms. Edgar had disappeared when he returned to the village, and all was quiet and silent. Arthur met Dr. Somers going down to the cottage in which Jeanie still was. The Doctor shook his head, but would not say much. “She is young, and she may pull through, if the place is kept quiet,” was all the information he would give. But he asked Arthur to dinner, which was a momentary relief to him, and Arthur recounted to him, with many amusing details, the history of his dismissal by the Pimpernels. The Doctor chuckled, partly because it was a good story, and made the Pimpernels ridiculous, and partly because Arthur Arden, though he put the best possible face upon it, must have been himself discomfited. “Serve him right,” the Doctor said within himself; but he asked him to dinner, and saved him from the horrors of a chop at the Arden Arms and a solitary evening in its little sanded parlour, which was a work of true benevolence--for Dr. Somers’ dinner and his claret would have been worthy of notice anywhere--much more when contrasted with the greasy attractions of a chop at the Arden Arms. CHAPTER II. While Arthur went to the Red House, Edgar had been exerting himself to still all the roads and deaden every sound about Sally Timms’ cottage. Sally’s boys considered the operation as a personal compliment. They tumbled in the straw, and threw it about, and buried each other with cries of delight which had to be suppressed in the most forcible and emphatic way--until at last Edgar, driven to interfere, had to order the removal of Johnny and Tommy. “They can go to the West Lodge for the night,” he said, with a hospitable liberality, at which the West Lodge keeper, who was helping in the work, groaned aloud. Sally herself, however, was very indignant at this exercise of despotic authority. She rushed to the front, and demanded to know why her cottage should be taken possession of, and the children carried off for the benefit of a stranger. “A lass as nobody knows, nor don’t care to know,” said Sally, “as has a deal too many gentlefolks alooking after her to be an honest lass.” “Take her away too,” said Edgar with benevolent tyranny. And Sally, with a scream of despair, snatched the old petticoat which stuffed her broken window, and fled from the bystanders, who did not attempt to carry out the Squire’s command. “I’ll go and I’ll see what Miss Clare says to it,” she cried. Edgar was a great deal too busy to pay any attention. He saw the work completed, and urged the necessity of care upon John Hesketh and his wife without considering that even they were but partial sympathisers. “I don’t hold with no such a fuss,” the women were saying among themselves. “If it had been the mother of a family she’d have had to take her chance; but a bit of a wench with a pretty face----” Thus he got no credit for his exertions, notwithstanding the injunctions of Dr. Somers. If Jeanie had been