“I will if I can,” said Mr. Channing, with some approach to gaiety. “I should not have gone to the expense of coming here, but that I had great hopes of the result.” “Expense, you call it! I call it a marvel of cheapness.” “For your pocket. Cheap as it is, it will tell upon mine: but, if it does effect my restoration, I shall soon repay it tenfold.” “‘If,’ again! It will effect it, I say. What shall you do with Hamish, when you resume your place at the head of your office?” “Let me resume it first, Huntley.” “There you go! Now, if you were only as sanguine and sure as you ought to be, I could recommend Hamish to something good to-morrow.” “Indeed! What is it?” “But, if you persist in saying you shall not get well, or that there’s a doubt whether you will get well, where’s the use of my doing it? So long as you are incapacitated, Hamish must be a fixture in Guild Street.” “True.” “So I shall say no more about it at present. But remember, my old friend, that when you are upon your legs, and have no further need of Hamish--who, I expect, will not care to drop down into a clerk again, where he has been master--I may be able to help him to something; so do not let anticipations on his score worry you. I suppose you will be losing Constance soon?” Mr. Channing gave vent to a groan: a sharp attack of his malady pierced his frame just then. Certain reminiscences, caused by the question, may have helped its acuteness; but of that Mr. Huntley had no suspicion. In the evening, when Mrs. Channing was sitting under the acacia trees, Mr. Huntley joined her, and she took the opportunity of alluding to the subject. “Do not mention it again in the presence of my husband,” she said: “talking of it can only bring it before his mind with more vivid force. Constance and Mr. Yorke have parted.” Had Mrs. Channing told him the cathedral had parted, Mr. Huntley could not have felt more surprise. “Parted!” he ejaculated. “From what cause?” “It occurred through this dreadful affair of Arthur’s. I fancy the fault was as much Constance’s as Mr. Yorke’s, but I do not know the exact particulars. He did not like it; he thought, I believe, that to marry a sister of Arthur’s would affect his own honour--or she thought it. Anyway, they parted.” “Had William Yorke been engaged to my daughter, and given her up upon so shallow a plea, I should have been disposed to chastise him,” intemperately spoke Mr. Huntley, carried away by his strong feeling. “But, I say I fancy that the giving up was on Constance’s side,” repeated Mrs. Channing. “She has a keen sense of honour, and she knows the pride of the Yorkes.” “Pride, such as that, would be the better for being taken down a peg,” returned Mr. Huntley. “I am sorry for this. The accusation has indeed been productive of serious effects. Why did not Arthur go to William Yorke and avow his innocence, and tell him there was no cause for their parting? Did he not do so?”