Randolph, however, wavered in his decision after he had made up his mind to go. Why should he go, putting himself to so much trouble at John’s order? He changed his mind half a dozen times in succession. Finally, however, he did go, sending two messages back on his way, one to John, the other to Mr. Pen. To John he said: “_I am alarmed beyond measure to see your name. Is it safe for you to be there? Know nothing about little girl, but hear that little boy has run away from school and am going to see._” Thus he planted, or meant to plant, an additional sting in his brother’s breast. And as he travelled along in the afternoon, going to see after Nello, his own exasperation and resentment became so hot within him, that when he arrived at the junction, he sent a message of a very different tenor to Mr. Pen. He did not perhaps quite know what he was doing. He was furious with disappointment and annoyance and confusion, feeling himself cheated, thrust aside, put out of the place which he ought to have filled. Nello would have had harsh justice had he been brought before him at such a moment, “Little troublesome, effeminate baby, good for nothing, and now to be ruined in every way. But I wash my hands of him,” Randolph said. CHAPTER XXXV. ANOTHER HELPER. On that same morning when so many things occurred, young Lord Stanton was seated in the library at Stanton, with a great deal of business to do. He had letters to write, he had the accounts of his agent to look over, and a hundred other very pressing matters which demanded his close attention. Perhaps it was only natural in these circumstances that Geoff should be unusually idle, and not at all disposed to tackle to his work. Generally he was so much interested in what was real work that he did it heartily, glad of the honest compulsion; but on this morning he was unsettled, and not in his usual mood of industry. He watched the leaves dropping from the trees outside, he listened idly to the sounds within; he scribbled on the margin of his accounts, now a bit of Latin verse (for Mr. Tritton was an elegant scholar), now a grotesque face, anything but the steady calculations he ought to have made. Now and then a sudden recollection of something he had read would cross his mind, when he would get up in the middle of a letter to seek the book in which he thought it was and verify his recollection on the spot, a thing he would not have taken the trouble to do had that floating recollection had any connection with the work in which he professed to be engaged. In short, he was entirely idle, distracted, and _desœuvré_. Mr. Tritton was reading to Lady Stanton in her morning room. It was early; the household were all busy and occupied,--all except the young master of it, who could not settle to his work.