He certainly hit upon a scheme, but he was not sure that it would accomplish the object in view. There was not, however, time to project a plan, requiring consummate skill in its details, and rare ability to execute. Need was driving, and the ground was such as the devil must cover without the option of a choice; and he made up his mind to act at once, for he required immediately the funds which the successful execution of his infamous purpose would place at his disposal. As if to sustain him in the resolution he had formed, he was aroused by the arrival of Whelks at the library door, who, when it was opened, informed him that his son had just returned home, accompanied by the Duke of St. Allborne, and the Honorable Lester Vane, and that they awaited him in the drawing-room. Dismissing Whelks with a message to the effect that he would immediately join them, he hastened to his dressing-room, to obliterate all traces of the mental struggle he had for so many hours endured, and, making a slight alteration in his attire, he descended, With solemn step and slow, to welcome his son’s guests upon their arrival from college. He found, on entering the gorgeously furnished apartment, his wife and daughters entertaining the new arrivals after the manner of the House--always excepting Evangeline, who sat back in a window recess, as if she had no business there. A few words of stately congratulation and welcome from Mr. Grahame, and the whole party returned to the position which it occupied when he entered. The keen eye of Mr. Grahame ran over the forms of the two young men who were thus introduced into his family for the first time, and naturally the young Duke was the first to attract his attention. He was tall--over six feet, and stout with his height. He was fair, with round blue eyes, a small mouth, and no whiskers upon his cheeks or moustache upon his upper lip, or the sign of a hair in the vicinity. His hands and feet were small, but there was a bulky, plethoric character about his frame, and his legs had an ungraceful leaning to knock-kneeism. The tone of his voice was rich and not unmusical; but, like many members of the aristocracy, his tongue refused to have anything to do with the letter _r_, and, as a not unusual consequence, he used words containing that letter more frequently than did persons who could sound it like the roll of a drumstick upon a kettle-drum. He was dressed elegantly. The jewellery he wore, though spare in quantity, was superb in material, and super-eminently costly.