Ten days after their interview, he drove into Ashdown and called on his brother. He had not let the grass grow under his feet in the interim. He had been successful in obtaining the promise of a situation for John Brancker in the office of one of his friends, a London merchant in an extensive way of business. Mr. Lucas, the merchant in question, was under certain obligations to Edward Hazeldine, and had at once acceded to his request to find a stool in his counting-house for John, who was to present himself there on the Monday morning next ensuing. Thereupon he handed his brother a note of introduction, requesting him, at the same time, to see John as soon as possible and give him the note, together with the writer's best wishes for his prosperity and success in his new calling. He felt a singular repugnance to calling in person upon the man to whom his moral cowardice had been the cause of such unmerited suffering. It seemed to him as if he should breathe more freely when John was a hundred miles away. John gave expression to his gratitude in warm terms for the service Mr. Edward had rendered him, and yet--and yet he felt that it would be very hard to have to break up his little home and sever the many ties which the habitude of years had worn into his daily life till they seemed to have become part and parcel of it. But there was no help for it, and when that is the case to murmur is foolishness. To meet the inevitable with repinings had never been John's way, and it was not so now. There was no need, however, to make any sudden or immediate change at the Cottage. John was to go a month on trial, and should everything prove satisfactory at the end of that time, then would a new home in one of the metropolitan suburbs have to be looked for and settled upon and the dreaded change made. Neither by John nor his sister was the probable change regarded with more apprehension than by Hermia and her lover. They would be parted; they could only hope to see each other at infrequent intervals; the thought was infinitely bitter to both, but it was a bitterness which they kept to themselves and only spoke of to each other. Not for worlds would they have added to the weight of regret which Uncle John and Aunt Charlotte had put up with already. Monday morning came in due course, and John took his departure for London by the seven o'clock train. CHAPTER XXIV. ENTER MR. HODGSON. Mention has been made of a certain Mr. Hodgson, as being the intermediary through whom John Brancker and his sister received into their charge and keeping the little three-years-old child, Hermia Rivers. It has also been told how the said Mr. Hodgson was in the habit of calling upon John once a year, apparently with the object of satisfying himself that Hermia was alive and well, and that everything, as far as she was concerned, was progressing satisfactorily.