“No newspaper?” he said. “How’s that? The Smith boy must have played us false.” “I will run out and get one,” said Ralph. “Will you have any of the local ones, too?” “Yes, let us see what they have to say about ‘The Winter’s Tale,’” said Macneillie. Ralph disappeared and Macneillie having finished his breakfast rang for the maid to clear. “Have you taken our newspaper to any of the other lodgers by mistake?” he asked, beginning to feel impatient for it. “No, sir,” said the maid. “It’s in here, at least--” looking round in surprise, “I know it was in here. Mr. Denmead must have taken it away. I saw him open it when I brought in the coffee.” Then in a flash it dawned upon Macneillie that Ralph had made away with the paper because it contained bad news. “The boy couldn’t stand seeing me come upon it suddenly,” he thought to himself. “He wanted me to breakfast first. No one but Ralph would have thought of that! It is the worst news. I must be ready to bear it.” He stood by the window looking out at the great expanse of sea with its blue surface crisply ruffled by the fresh wind. Away to the left the graceful outline of the chain pier seemed to speak of old fashioned Brighton, and it took him back to a time at least seventeen years ago in the very earliest days of his betrothal to Christine. How vividly the very tiniest details of the past came back to him. It had been in the days of aestheticism and high art colouring, a style which had suited Christine to perfection. He could remember, too, how at one of the little old-fashioned stalls he had bought her a dirk-shaped Scotch shawl brooch with a cairngorm stone in it; they had been far too poor in those days to dream of diamonds. “She was only a child of seventeen,” he thought to himself, “younger than Evereld Ewart; and I was not perhaps so very much older than that young fellow over the way. Yes, I was though--it is Ralph! How slowly he is walking. I believe the boy cares for me, he hates to be the bearer of ill news.” Ralph’s usually cheerful face was curiously over-cast; he put down the papers, muttered something about “going to Brill’s for a swim,” and made for the door. “Rehearsal at eleven, don’t forget,” said Macneillie, taking up the London paper with a steady hand. He was glad to be alone, and in the midst of his grievous pain he felt grateful to Ralph for that little touch of considerateness which had spared him to some extent,--that strategem which had deferred his evil day. For as he had said his suspense had been largely mixed with hope, he had tried to face the other alternative but his very sense of justice had inclined him to be hopeful. It surely could not be that after these long years of suffering there should be no release? Max Hereford’s words had chilled him for the time, but spite of them the hope had predominated. Now hope lay dead,--remorselessly slain by this unequal English law, which as a Scotsman seemed to him so extraordinary so intolerably unfair.