Mrs Waynflete put the key in her pocket, rose, and standing at her full height, said--"Good day to you," and walked away with firm, unfaltering step, across the paved entrance, up the bit of lane that led to the garden wall. She went in through the gate and across the garden, and upstairs to Guy's room, at which she knocked sharply. "Guy, I wish to come in." The door was unfastened, and Guy stood there in great surprise. "Aunt Margaret!" he said. "What is it? I am much better. I am coming down for some tea." Mrs Waynflete put him aside with her hand, entered the room, and shut the door. It was a large, comfortable room, with a bookcase and a good supply of books, a writing-table, a sofa and an armchair, besides the little iron bed in the corner, and it was brilliantly light, for there was not a curtain or a hanging of any sort in the room. Such was Guy's taste. He looked pale still, but quite himself, and there was nothing peculiar in his manner, as he repeated-- "What is it, Aunt Margaret?" "This," said his aunt, as she sat down in the armchair, and held out the key. "What is it that you mean?" said Guy, with a sudden look of being on his guard, and much in the tone of her own question to John Cooper. "You left your cupboard open, Guy, and John Cooper, very properly, locked it up, and gave me the key. What should a lad of your age do with a bottle of brandy?" "Confound John Cooper's meddling impertinence!" said Guy, passionately. "It is nothing to him or to any one what I choose to keep there." "That depends upon the use you make of it." "Has John Cooper been setting it about that I've been drinking?" said Guy, with an angry laugh. "Is that--is _that_ what it looks like?" He caught himself up with a start, and turning away to the window, stood staring out of it, while his aunt said-- "It's a matter I'll have cleared up, Guy, before I answer all your questions of this morning. I've known many young fellows take a drop too much in company. That wasn't thought so much of when I was young. But it's different nowadays; and what that bottle of brandy means, if it means anything at all, is a very different matter again." Whether Guy was struggling with temper or embarrassment, or whether he really did not know what to say, he was silent for some time. At last he turned round, and said ungraciously--"On my word and honour, I don't drink. I have never been drunk in my life--yet." "Then what does this mean?" still holding out the key. "Sometimes--very seldom--I get faint or dizzy--with a headache--I hate a fuss, and I can set myself right with a little brandy." There was something in the extreme reluctance with which the answer was given that justified suspicion. "You ought to see a doctor, if that is so," said Mrs Waynflete, with much reason; "and when I hear what he says, I'll think of what you say."