The renovation of Musselburgh House took more time than had been hoped; bride and bridegroom remained abroad, basking in the sweet airs and sunlight of the Mediterranean spring; and it was not until well on in the month of May that they returned to London. Immediately after their arrival Vincent called on them—one afternoon on his way down to St. Stephen’s. He stayed only a few minutes; and had little to say. But the moment he had left Lady Musselburgh turned to her husband. "Oh, Hubert, isn’t it dreadful! Did you ever see such a change in any human being? And no one to tell us of it—not even his own father—nor a word from Louie Drexel, though she wrote often enough about him and what he was doing in the House——" "Yes, he does look ill," said Lord Musselburgh, with a seriousness not usual with him. "Very ill, indeed. Yet he doesn’t seem to know it—declares there is nothing the matter with him—shows a little impatience, even, when you begin to ask questions. I suppose he has been working too hard; too eager and anxious all the way round; too ambitious—not like most young men. He’d better give up that newspaper-nonsense, for one thing." "Oh, it isn’t that, Hubert; it isn’t that!" she exclaimed, in rather piteous accents; and she walked away to the window (this was the very room in which Vincent had first set eyes on Maisrie Bethune and her grandfather). She stood there, alone, for a time. Then her husband went and joined her, and linked his arm within hers. She was crying a little. "I did it for the best, Hubert," she sobbed. "Did what for the best?" "Getting that girl away. I never thought it would come to this." "Now, now, Madge," said he, in a very affectionate fashion, "don’t you worry about nothing—or rather, it isn’t nothing, for Vin does look pretty seedy; but you mustn’t assume that you are in any way responsible. People don’t die nowadays of separation and a broken heart—not nowadays. He is fagged; he is not used to the late hours of the House of Commons; then there’s that newspaper work——" "But his manner, Hubert, his manner!" she exclaimed. "He seemed as if he no longer cared for anything in life; he hardly listened when I told him where we had been; he appeared to be thinking of something quite different—as if he were looking at ghosts." "And perhaps he was looking at ghosts," said her husband. "For it was by that table there he first saw those two people who have made all this trouble. But why should you consider yourself responsible, Madge? It wasn’t your money that sent them out of the country. It wasn’t you who found out what they really were." She passed her handkerchief across her eyes.