"Yes," said Mabel; "I'll tell you what I know. Wallace saw Gerald in London--he told us that--and we all know that Gerald couldn't pay his debts a little while since. You remember he came down to Kendal and went on and stayed the next night with the Claytons. It isn't astonishing that he didn't come here after the row there was on the last occasion." "Go on," said Evelyn. "What has his visit to the Claytons to do with it?" "Well," said Mabel, "you don't know that I saw Gerald in the afternoon. After all, he's the only brother I've got; and as Jim was going to the station with the trap I made him take me. The Claytons were in the garden; we were scattered about, and I heard Frank and Gerald, who had strolled off from the others, talking. Gerald was telling him about some things he'd bought; they must have been expensive, because Frank asked him where he got the money. Gerald laughed, and said he'd had an unexpected stroke of luck that had set him straight again. Now, of course, Gerald got no money from home, and if he'd won it he would have told Frank how he did so. Gerald always would tell a thing like that." Evelyn was filled with confusion and hot indignation. She had little doubt that Mabel's surmise was correct. "I wonder if he has told anybody, though it's scarcely likely," she said. "Of course he hasn't. We all know what Gerald is. Wallace ought to get his money back, now you have sent him away," Mabel, who had waited a moment or two, went on. "But, of course, that's most unlikely. It wouldn't take Gerald long to waste it." Evelyn rose, and, making some excuse, left the room. A suspicion which had troubled her more than Gerald's conduct had lately crept into her mind, and it now thrust itself upon her attention--several things pointed to the fact that her father had taken a similar course to that which her brother had taken. She felt that had she heard Mabel's information before the interview with Vane, she might have yielded to him in an agony of humiliation. Mabel had summed up the situation with stinging candour and crudity--Vane, who had been defrauded, was entitled to recover the money he had parted with. For a few moments Evelyn was furiously angry with him, and then, growing calmer, she recognised that this was unreasonable. She could not imagine any idea of a compact originating with the man, and he had quietly acquiesced in her decision. Soon after she left her sister, Vane walked into the room which Chisholm reserved for his own use. Chisholm was sitting at the table with some papers in front of him and a cigar in his hand, and Vane drew out a chair and lighted his pipe before he addressed him. "I've made up my mind to sail on Saturday, instead of next week," he said. "You have decided rather suddenly, haven't you?" Vane knew that what his host wished to inquire about was the cause of his decision, and he meant to come to the point. He was troubled by no consideration for the man.