The Rev. Adrian Lumley had been ailing for a considerable time; he was no longer able to undertake his parish duties, and compelled to employ a curate. Lately his health had suddenly become so uncertain that his son took three months’ leave, and returned from Egypt. Captain Lumley arrived looking handsome, sunburnt, and cheery, and his sister Frances realised that he was no longer the boy that, as her younger brother, she had always managed, patronised, and coerced. Lancelot had been adjutant of his regiment, and acquired a manner of decision and brevity that was new. He found his father frail, broken-down, and evidently failing fast. For months, the Rector had confined himself to his books and his garden, and now he was a prisoner in his room. Perhaps if the reverend gentleman had not been so completely laid upon the shelf, matters at Sharsley might have been smoothed over, and improved; but, as it was, Blagdon had no one to withstand him; he had parted with any scruples he might possess, and affairs had gone from bad to worse. Except for a few days in the shooting season, he had ceased to live at home. Most of the rooms were closed, servants dismissed, the gardens let, the horses sold. He had heavy expenses elsewhere, and was not disposed to burn the candle at both ends. He had allowed it to be whispered into the ear of society, that his wife was ‘not quite all there.’ Magnified descriptions of her first disastrous dinner-party, her bizarre gowns, her silence and shyness, gave colour to this suggestion,--so said his interested friends; and other people declared that Blagdon was bad,--some even added, mad! Altogether Sharsley was given a wide berth; it was out of the way, more recent topics, quarrels, and scandals arose, and poor young Mrs. Blagdon was comparatively forgotten. Frances had always divined that her brother had cared for Letty Glyn. Of course, now that she was married, she was out of his reach; still, in talking over the country-side news, she studiously omitted any particular reference to the Blagdons. “What about the Court? How did they get on?” her brother asked at last. “Not very well,” she was obliged to confess; “he is a strange sort of a man, and is but little at home. He has a shocking temper.” “A nice sort of husband for her! Mrs. Fenchurch should be proud of herself! Look here, Francis, you must take me to call to-morrow.” Lumley carried out his suggestion, but, as it happened, unaccompanied by his sister, for at the last moment, a dying parishioner had summoned her, and he walked up to Sharsley alone.