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for the future his umbrella would have to be chained round his waist.
    â€œExtraordinary,” Mr. Longden declared, “what things people will say. No doubt what’s happened is rather overwhelming and I expect both the old people are very worried about Ralph. And that’s what makes all this gossip.”
    â€œIt may be gossip,” Sophy answered, “but it’s true. Both of them look as if they had done something they are awfully ashamed of and they know harm will come of it. The countess keeps muttering that to herself—that harm will come of it.”
    â€œAll the same,” persisted Mr. Longden, “the young man has his rights, and among them is the right to a welcome home. There’s a touch of romance in such a return I should have thought would appeal to every one. I am afraid the butler, Martin, is responsible to some degree. He was at the Wych Arms last night and he seems to have talked in a way that has helped to spread this gossip.”
    Sophy was silent, but she remembered how like a waiting vulture the soft-footed butler had seemed, hovering and silent and patient at a little distance. She wondered if he could know something, but that seemed to her unlikely. Her father was saying anxiously:—
    â€œI do hope, once the first shock is over, Ralph will take it in the right spirit, and that he will try to be friendly to the young man.”
    â€œMr. Ralph says he is an impostor,” Sophy found herself saying, though she had not meant to tell her father that.
    Only somehow the words came tumbling out before she was aware.
    Mr. Longden stood still and shook his head sadly.
    â€œI am very, very sorry to hear it,” he said. “It had occurred to me, but I couldn’t believe it of Ralph. I had a better opinion of him. I shouldn’t have said that,” he added remorsefully. “It must have been a terrible shock to any young man. No one has a right to judge him unless they have been in the same position.” This was a favourite remark of Mr. Longden’s, and as no one is ever in exactly the same position as any one else, it followed that no one ever had the right to judge another, as is probably true. 
    They were passing the Wych Estate office now. This was a comparatively new building, in two stories. On the ground floor were three rooms, an outer office for a Miss Higson, the typist, who liked to call herself secretary; a waiting-room; and an inner office for Ralph. Above were rooms occupied by Mrs. Gregson, who was the widow of an old estate employee, acted as caretaker and office cleaner, and sometimes as office boy as well, provided tea every day and occasionally other meals when Ralph happened to be busier than usual. Mr. Longden was half inclined to call in the hope of finding Ralph in a mood which would permit of the offering of a little friendly counsel, but then decided that it was too near the luncheon hour.
    â€œPerhaps,” he said as they went on, “Miss Anne Hoyle’s influence will help him to get over it better. I do hope she isn’t being unfriendly to the young man.”
    â€œNo, she isn’t,” said Sophy briefly; and only just prevented herself from adding that Anne was flirting with him as hard as she knew how.
    It was an entirely new phase of Anne’s character, and one that greatly bewildered and disturbed Sophy. Hitherto Anne had seemed quite indifferent to young men, whom she was often inclined to snub. Older men seemed to attract her much more, and even to Ralph she showed a degree of coldness that surprised Sophy, though she had admired it greatly as a proof equally of feminine reserve and of aristocratic self-control that would permit no display of that love you must obviously feel for the man you were engaged to, or else why are you engaged to him? If doubts had at times tried to enter her mind, Sophy was far too loyal to admit them, and had indeed closed the door on them with such a bang that