As Launce Keymer, a little later, walked homeward through the dewy night, the word _ruin_ rang in his ears like a knell. Ethel Thursby (or whatever her right name was, or ought to be) was a charming girl, no one more so—although, perhaps, a trifle too demure and puritanical for his taste—and, as heiress to the spinsters, he would gladly have made her his wife. But to marry her without a shilling to call her own, either now or in time to come, was an altogether different affair. Launce lost no time on the morrow in laying the case before his father. That astute person, having heard him quietly to the end, said: “What a very fortunate thing it is that this news has come to hand now, instead of later on. Of course the affair must not be allowed to proceed any further till we have ascertained for a fact whether the old maids are, or are not, ruined. After all, it is just possible that the missing securities may turn up and nobody be a penny the poorer. By the way, has the girl any letters written by you in her possession?” “Not a single line.” “So much the better. Now, what you must do is to disappear from the scene for awhile. You can run down to Cornwall and stay with your uncle for a week or two.” “But,” urged Launce, “I can’t, with any show of decency, leave home without either calling on, or writing to Ethel, and giving some more or less plausible excuse for my absence.” “You must neither call nor write,” said his father. “You had better start by the three o’clock train this afternoon, and have your right wrist bound up as if the result of a sprain. I will make all needful excuses for you.” Launce Keymer was one of that numerous class of young men who can do with an unlimited quantity of holidays, and his father’s suggestion seemed to him in every way an admirable one. Accordingly, the three o’clock train carried him away in due course, with his wrist bound up in accordance with his father’s directions; but by the time St. Oswyth’s had been left half-a-dozen miles behind, the bandage was unrolled and flung out of the carriage window. In the course of the same afternoon a note, addressed to “Miss Thursby,” was delivered at Vale View. In it Mr. Keymer senior begged to inform that lady, that, in consequence of his son having been called away by telegram owing to the serious illness of a near relative, he—Launce—would not be able to dine at Vale View that day, as promised. His son would himself have written had he not unfortunately happened to sprain his wrist so severely that it would be impossible for him to hold a pen for some time to come. The note made no mention of Ethel, purposely leaving it an open question whether, before quitting home, Launce had, or had not, confided to his father the fact of his engagement.