“Why, Elma, he has always been so devoted to him, and George used to seem quite different when he was with us. Colin is terribly grieved about what you--I--did yesterday. He says it was very wrong to break off the engagement altogether, that I was quite right not to marry George at once, but that I ought to have put him on probation, giving him every possible hope for the future.” “I think I see you putting Captain Ferrers on probation,” said Lady Haigh grimly, recalling her brief interview with the gentleman in question. “He would be the last person to stand it, however much he might wish to marry you----” She broke off suddenly. “But, Elma, he does,” said Penelope piteously, understanding the “But he doesn’t” which her friend suppressed for the sake of her feelings. “That’s the worst of it. He told Colin that he was so taken aback, and felt himself so utterly unworthy, when you told him I was here, that he felt the best thing for my happiness was to break off the engagement at once. But when he came in in the evening, and saw us both again, and heard the old songs, he felt he had thrown away his only chance of doing better. Colin always seems to bring out the best in him, you know, and----” “Do you know what happened as soon as he had said good night to you?” asked Lady Haigh coldly. “He was beating one of his servants, who had made a mistake about bringing his horse, so frightfully that Dugald had to go and interfere. He said to me when he came back that it was a comfort to think Ferrers would get a knife into him if he tried that sort of thing on the frontier.” “But doesn’t that show what a terrible temper poor George has, and how hard it must be for him to control it?” cried Penelope. “He says he feels he should just go straight to the dogs if we took away all hope from him. I know it’s very wrong of him to say it, but I dare not take the responsibility, Elma. And Colin says he has always had such a very strong feeling that in some way or other George’s eternal welfare was bound up with him or me, or both of us, and so----” “Now I call that profane,” was the crushing reply. “Oh, I know Colin would cheerfully sacrifice you or himself, or both of you, as you say, for the sake of saving any one, and much more George Ferrers, but it doesn’t lie with him. What if he sacrifices you and doesn’t save Ferrers? But I know it’s no good talking. Colin will take his own course in his own meek unbending way, and drag you after him. But I won’t countenance it, at any rate. What has he got you to do?”