Cyril Mowbray found himself suddenly advanced to a position of unlooked-for prominence, owing to the amount of information he was able to give to the newspaper men regarding the scene during the run on the bank, and the scene in the drawingroom at the Court, when the man who called himself Standish had entered, demanding the money which he had lodged the previous year in Westwoods' bank. Only once before had Cyril found himself in a position of equal prominence, and that was when he had been finally sent down at Oxford for participating in a prank of such a character as caused the name of his college to appear in every newspaper for close upon a week under the heading of “The University Scandal.” Before the expiration of that week Cyril's name was in the mouth of every undergraduate, and he felt, for the remainder of the week, all the gratification which is the result (sometimes) of a sudden accession to a position of prominence after a long period of comparative obscurity. But his sister Agnes was completely prostrated by what had now happened--by the gladness of hearing that her lover was safe--that her long years of watching and waiting had not been in vain, and by the grief of knowing that her gladness could not be shared by Dick Westwood. It seemed to her that her hour of grief had swallowed up her hour of joy. She could not look forward to the delight of meeting Claude once again without feeling that her triumph--the triumph of her constancy--was robbed of more than half its pleasure, since it could not be shared by poor Dick. A week ago the news that her lover was safe would have thrilled her with delight; but now it seemed to her a barren joy even to anticipate his return: she knew that he would never recover from the blow of his brother's death--she knew that all the love she might lavish upon him would not diminish the bitterness of the thoughts that would be his when he returned to the Court and found it desolate.