"Well, there's a good deal of cackling up here too. But tell me about the new girl." Lord Southend did not appear to consider his own question "cackling" or as tending to produce the same. "I've only seen her once. She's in absolute seclusion and lets nobody in except Mina Zabriska--a funny little foreign woman--You don't know her." "I know about her, I saw it in the paper. She had something to do with it?" "Yes." Iver passed away from that side of the subject immediately. "And she's struck up a friendship with Cecily Gainsborough--Lady Tristram, I ought to say. I had a few words with the father. The poor old chap doesn't know whether he's on his head or his heels; but as they're of about equal value, I should imagine, for thinking purposes, it doesn't much matter. Ah, here's Neeld. He came up with me." The advent of Neeld produced more discussion. Yet Southend said nothing of the matter which he had brought to Lady Evenswood's attention. Discretion was necessary there. Besides he wished to know how the land lay as to Janie Iver. On that subject his friend preserved silence. "And the whole thing was actually in old Joe's diary!" exclaimed Southend. Neeld, always annoyed at the "Joe," admitted that the main facts had been recorded in Mr Cholderton's Journal, and that he himself had known them when nobody else in England did--save, of course, the conspirators themselves. "And you kept it dark? I didn't know you were as deep as that, Neeld." He looked at the old gentleman with great amazement. "Neeld was in an exceedingly difficult position," said Iver. "I've come to see that." He paused, looking at Southend with an amused air. "You introduced us to one another," he reminded him with a smile. "Bless my soul, so I did! I'd forgotten. Well, it seems my fate too to be mixed up in the affair." Just at present, however, he was assisting fate rather actively. "It's everybody's. The Blent's on fire from Mingham to the sea." "I've seen Harry Tristram." "Ah, how is he?" asked Neeld. "Never saw a young man more composed in all my life. And he couldn't be better satisfied with himself if he'd turned out to be a duke." "We know Harry's airs," Iver said, smiling indulgently. "But there's stuff in him." A note of regret came into his voice. "He treated me very badly--I know Neeld won't admit it, but he did. Still I like him and I'd help him if I could." "Well, he atoned for anything wrong by owning up in the end," remarked Southend. "That wasn't for my sake or for---- Well, it had nothing to do with us. As far as we were concerned he'd be at Blent to-day. It was Cecily Gainsborough who did it." "Yes. I wonder----" Iver rose decisively. "Look here, Southend, if you're going to do exactly what all my friends and neighbors, beginning with Miss Swinkerton, are doing, I shall go and write letters." With a nod he walked into the next room, leaving Neeld alone with his inquisitive friend. Southend lost no time.