Lord Cheriton received his kinsman’s friend with marked cordiality, and seemed to enjoy his freshness and spontaneity. They talked of Cambridge—the Cambridge of forty years ago and the Cambridge of to-day,—and they talked of the continental schools of medicine, a subject in which the lawyer was warmly interested. There were no other visitors expected before September, when three old friends of Lord Cheriton’s were to shoot the partridges. In October there was to be a large party for the pheasant shooting, which was the chief glory of Cheriton Chase. There had been no shooters at the Chase last year, and Lord Cheriton felt himself so much the more constrained to hospitality. “You fellows must come in October, when we have our big shoot,” he said; but Cuthbert Ramsay told him that he must be at work again in London before the end of September. Cuthbert was much impressed by the master of Cheriton Chase, and the grave and quiet dignity with which he wore success that might have made a weaker man arrogant and self-assertive. It would seem as if scarcely anything were wanting to that prosperous career. Yet Cuthbert saw that his host was not free from a cloud of care. It was natural, perhaps, that he should feel the tragedy of his son-in-law’s death as a lasting trouble, not to be shuffled off and forgotten when the conventional period of mourning was past. Theodore had some private talk with his cousin on the first evening of his visit, walking up and down the terrace, while Cuthbert was looking at the books in the library, under Lady Cheriton’s guidance. He had it fully in his mind that the time must come when he would be obliged to take Lord Cheriton into his confidence, but he felt that time was still far off. Whenever the revelation came it must needs be infinitely painful to both, and deeply humiliating to the man whose hidden sin had brought desolation upon his innocent daughter, and untimely death upon the man whose fate had been linked with hers. It was for his dishonour, for the wrongs inflicted by him, that those two had made expiation. No, the time to be outspoken—the time to say in the words of the prophet, “Thou art the man,” had not yet come. When it should come he would be prepared to act resolutely and fearlessly; but in the mean time he must needs go on working in the dark.