The person he had appointed to meet in the City was an Oldchester man; and when the business part of their interview was concluded, he said to Mr. Bragg-- "There's bad news from Combe Park. Haven't you heard? Oh! why they say Mr. Lucius Cheffington can't live many days. So that scamp, What's-his-name, the nephew, will come in for it all. The old lord's awfully savage, I'm told. Shouldn't wonder if it balks young Bransby's hopes of getting his seat. Old Castlecombe won't like paying election expenses for him _now_. Great pity! He's a very rising young man, and a credit to Oldchester." CHAPTER II. When Mr. Bragg was gone, May felt a cowardly temptation to run away to her own room, and there recover her composure in solitude. But she reflected that that would be scarcely fair to her aunt, who, no doubt, was waiting with some impatience to hear the result of the interview. So she dried her eyes, and resolutely ascended the stairs to her aunt's room. The gentle, refined voice which had once so charmed her (but which, as she had long since learned, could utter sentiments singularly at variance with its own sweetness) answered her tap at the door by saying, "Is that dear May? Come in." May entered, and saw her aunt reclining in a lounging chair by the fireside. A book lay open beside her; but she evidently had not been reading recently. She looked up at May's flushed face and tear-swollen eyes, and these traces of emotion seemed to her satisfactory indications of what had passed. "He has spoken! It's all right!" she said to herself. Then aloud, with a tender smile, holding out both her hands, "Well, darling?" The softness of her tone had a perversely hardening effect on May. If her aunt had expected her to accept Mr. Bragg--and May was not dull enough to doubt this, now that her eyes were illumined by that dawn of clear-sightedness which had been so amazing to her--the least she could do was to be quiet and common-sensible about it. Any assumption of sentiment seemed to May to be sickening under the circumstances. So she answered dryly-- "Mr. Bragg desired me to tell you that he will have the honour of calling on you again before long." "Is he gone?" asked Mrs. Dormer-Smith, with a momentary twinge of anxiety. "Yes; he is gone. He had an appointment in the City, and was rather pressed for time; so he could not stay to take leave of you." "Oh!" exclaimed her aunt, sinking back among her cushions with a smile, "I forgive him." Then seeing May turn away as if to leave the room, she suddenly sat up again, and said with an air of gentle reproach, "And have you nothing to say to me, dear May?" "Nothing particular, Aunt Pauline." "Nothing particular! I do not think that is very kindly said, May."