Mr. Wedmore put his arm around his daughter, and kissed her tenderly. "Don't trouble your head about him any more, my dear child," said he in a husky voice. "He isn't worth it. He isn't worthy of you." Doreen drew away from her father, looking into his face with searching eyes and with an expression full of fear. "Papa, what do you mean? You have sent him away?" Mr. Wedmore answered in a loud and angry voice; but it was clear enough that the anger was not directed against his daughter. "I did not send him away. He took himself off. I had hardly begun to speak to him--and I began quite quietly, mind--when he made the excuse of a letter which he found waiting for him, to go back to town. Without any ceremony, he rushed out of the study into the hall, and snatched up his hat and coat to go." "And is he gone?" asked Doreen, in a low voice, as she staggered back a step. "Oh, yes, I suppose so. And a good riddance, too. There was no letter at all for him, I suppose." "Yes, there was a letter!" faltered Doreen. She gave a glance round her; seemed to remember suddenly the presence of a third person, for she blushed deeply on meeting the doctor's eyes; then, without another word, she sprang across the room to the door. "Where are you going?" cried her father, as he followed her into the hall. But she did not answer. The hall-door was closing with a loud clang. Doreen was not the girl to lose her lover for want of a little energy. She was fonder of Dudley than people imagined. There is always an inclination in the general mind to consider that a person of lively temperament is incapable of a deep feeling. And Mr. Wedmore had only shown a common tendency in believing that his beautiful and brilliant daughter would easily give up the lover whom he considered unworthy of her. But he was wrong. Much too high-spirited and too happy in her temperament and surroundings to brood over her lover's late negligence, she was perhaps too vain to believe that she had lost her hold upon his heart. At any rate, she liked him too well to give him up in this off-hand fashion without making an effort to discover the reason of his present mysterious conduct. That letter which he had used as an excuse for his sudden departure had arrived at The Beeches by the afternoon post. Doreen had seen it with her own eyes; had noted with some natural curiosity that the direction was ill-spelled, ill-written; that the chirography was that of an almost illiterate female correspondent; and that the post-mark showed that it came from the East End of London. Rather a strange letter for the smart young barrister to receive, perhaps. And the thought of it made Doreen pause when she had got outside the door on the broad drive between the lawns.