"Bah! what a cowardly, nervous little puss it is," cried Rolph, taking her in his arms, and she clung to him sobbing hysterically. "Look here, mother; you'd better take a house, or furnished apartments in town at once, and we'll get the business done there. Madge is afraid of bogies. Weak and hysterical, and that sort of thing. Get her away; the place is dull, and the poachers are hanging about here a good deal." Marjorie uttered a faint shriek which was perfectly real. "Take us away at once, Rob, dear," she whispered passionately; "I can't bear to be separated from you now." "All right," he said. "I'll stop and take care of you till you're ready to start, and see you safe in town. You can go to a hotel for a day or two. Will that do?" "Yes, dear; admirably," cried Mrs Rolph, eagerly; and Marjorie uttered a sigh of consent that was like a moan of pain. Volume 3, Chapter XII. RE THE FOCUS. News reaches the servants' hall sooner than it does the drawing-room, and before long it was known at Brackley that a wedding was in the air. Cook let it off in triumph one day at dinner. She had been very silent for some time, and then began to smile, till Morris, the butler, who had noted the peculiarities of this lady for years, suddenly exclaimed,--"Now then, what is it? Out with it, cook!" "Oh, don't ask me; it's nothing." "Yes, it is," said the butler, with a wink directed all round the table. "What are you laughing at?" "It does seem so rum," cried cook, laughing silently till her face was peony-like in hue. "Well, you might give us a bit, cook," said the major's valet. "What is it?" "They've--they've found the focus again," cried cook, laughing now quite hysterically. "Eh? Where?" cried Morris. "Over at The Warren." "What," cried the butler severely; "made it up? Cook, I should be sorry to say unpleasant things to any lady, but if you were a man, I should tell you that you were an old fool." "Well, I'm sure!" cried cook, "that's polite, when I heered it only this morning from the butcher, who'd just come straight from The Warren, where he heered it all." "What? That Captain Rolph had made it up with our Miss Glynne? Rubbish, woman, rubbish! After the way he pitched the poor girl over and went off shooting, that could never be." "If people would not be quite so clever," said cook, addressing the assembled staff of servants round the table, "and would not jump at things before they know, perhaps they'd get on a little better in life. As if I didn't know that she'd never marry now. I said as the captain had made up matters with his cousin, that carrotty-headed girl who came to be bridesmaid." "You don't mean it," cried Morris. "It's a fact," said cook, "and it's to come off at once." "What, her? Disgraceful!" Cook smiled again, with the quiet confidence of knowledge, and ignoring the butler's remark, she fixed the maids in turn with her eye.