he Holkers' garden-party. Colonel Kelmscott, too, had his bad half-hour or so before he finally fell asleep; and he woke

ith his limbs all fevered and his throat all parched, thinking over the strange chance that had thus brought h

up his mind that if ever the names he had imposed upon them were to fall upon his startled ears, no human being that stood by and looked on should note for one second a single tremor of his lips, a faint shudder of surprise, an almost imperceptible flush or pallor on his impassive countenance. And when the shock cam

. In London, of course, all things are possible. Sooner or later, there, everybody hustles and clashes against everybody. For that reason, he had tried to suggest, by indirect means, when he launched them on the world, that the twins should tempt their fortune in India or the colonies. He would have liked to think they were well o

d lain asleep so long, woke up of a sudden with

o see his own two sons, the sons he had never set eyes on for twenty-five years or more, grown up into such handsome, well-set, noble-looking fellows-so clever, so bright, so able, so charming-to feel they were in every way as much gentlemen born as Granville himself

abase himself even to his inmost self as to admit he had sinned without deep provocation. He thought it all over in his heart, just there, exactly as

Granville now-or rather, perhaps, as Guy and Cyril Waring. For he couldn't conceal from himself any longer the patent fact that Lucy Waring's sons were like his own old self, and sturdier, handsomer young fellows into the bargain than Lady Emily Kelmscott's boy Granville, whom he had made int

married her. He did he

n at least to lay

f Tilgate? And, indeed, indeed, he said to himself earnestly, he meant her no harm, though he seemed at times to be cruel to her. As soon as he gathered how deeply she was entangled-how seriously she took it all-how much she was in love with him-he tried hard to break it off, he tried hard to put matters to her in their proper light; he tried to show her tha

gate should ever have stooped to do-yes, promised to marry her. Of course, he didn't attempt in his own heart to justify that initial folly, as lie thought it, to himself. He didn't pretend to condone it. He only allowed he

But a Kelmscott, you know, should respect his order, and s

ell! ah, well! every man makes a fool of himself once or twice in his life; and though the Colonel was ashamed now of having so far bemeaned his order as to marry the girl, why, if

ucy. In those days, he hadn't yet come into possession of the Tilgate estates; and if his father had known of it-well, the Admiral was such a despotic old man that he'd have insisted on his son's selling out at once, and going off to Australia or heaven

t marry her. It was a hateful time. He shrank from recalling it. He was keeping Lucy, then his own wedded wife, as Mrs. Waring, in small rooms in Plymouth; and yet he was running up to town now and again, on leave, as the gay young bachelor, the heir of Tilgate Park-and meeting Emily Croke at every party he went to in Lond

ne his duty, after a fashion, by Lucy. When a girl of that class marries a gentleman, don't you see, and consents, too, mind you, to marry him privately, she can't expect to share much of her husband's company. She can't expect h

e room, near the Hoe, at Plymouth. It was a happy release for him though he really loved her. But still, when a man's fool enough to love a girl below his own station in life-the Colonel

this sudden change of front on his son's part. Why the dickens Harry hadn't wanted to marry the girl before, to be sure he couldn't conceive; hankering after some missy in the country, he supposed, that silly rot about what they call love, no doubt; but now that Harry ha

hat was all, mind you, he declared to himself more than once in his own soul. He told no lies. He made no complications. While the Admiral live

onel's difficulties gathered thicker around him. At last, in the fulness of time, the Admiral died, and slept with his fathers, whose Elizabethan ruff's were the honour and glory of the chancel at Tilgate; and then the day o

n livelihood, so no wrong, he said casuistically, had been done to THEM, at any rate. And Granville had been brought up as the

e was keeping his lawful sons out of their own in the end, an