Although Lord Persiflage had seemed to be very angry with the recusant Duke, and had made that uncivil speech about the gutter, still he was quite willing that George Roden should be asked down to Castle Hautboy. "Of course we must do something for him," he said to his wife; "but I hate scrupulous men. I don\'t blame him at all for making such a girl as Fanny fall in love with him. If I were a Post Office clerk I\'d do the same if I could."

"Not you. You wouldn\'t have given yourself the trouble."

"But when I had done it I wouldn\'t have given her friends more trouble than was necessary. I should have known that they would have had to drag me up somewhere. I should have looked for that. But I shouldn\'t have made myself difficult when chance gave a helping hand. Why shouldn\'t he have taken his title?"

"Of course we all wish he would."

"Fanny is as bad as he is. She has caught some of Hampstead\'s levelling ideas and encourages the young man. It was all Kingsbury\'s fault from the first. He began the world wrong, and now he cannot get himself right again. A radical aristocrat is a contradiction in terms. It is very well that there should be Radicals. It would be a stupid do-nothing world without them. But a man can\'t be oil and vinegar at the same time." This was the expression made by Lord Persiflage of his general ideas on politics in reference to George Roden and his connection with the Trafford family; but not the less was George Roden asked down to Castle Hautboy. Lady Frances was not to be thrown over because she had made a fool of herself,—nor was George Roden to be left out in the cold, belonging as he did now to Lady Frances. Lord Persiflage never approved very much of anybody,—but he never threw anybody over.

It was soon after the funeral of Marion Fay that Roden went down to Cumberland. During the last two months of Marion\'s illness Hampstead and Roden had been very often together. Not that they had lived together, as Hampstead had declared himself unable to bear continued society. His hours had been passed alone. But there had not been many days in which the friends had not seen each other for a few minutes. It had become a habit with Hampstead to ride over to Paradise Row when Roden had returned from the office. At first Mrs. Roden also had been there;—but latterly she had spent her time altogether at Pegwell Bay. Nevertheless Lord Hampstead would come, and would say a few words, and would then ride home again. When all was over at Pegwell Bay, when the funeral was at hand, and during the few days of absolutely prostrating grief which followed it, nothing was seen of him;—but on the evening before his friend\'s journey down to Castle Hautboy he again appeared in the Row. On this occasion he walked over, and his friend returned with him a part of the way. "You must do something with yourself," Roden said to him.

"I see no need of doing anything special. How many men do nothing with themselves!"

"Men either work or play."

"I do not think I shall play much."

"Not for a time certainly. You used to play; but I can imagine that the power of doing so will have deserted you."

"I shan\'t hunt, if you mean that."

"I do not mean that at all," said Roden;—"but that you should do something. There must be some occupation, or life will be insupportable."

"It is insupportable," said the young man looking away, so that his countenance should not be seen.

"But it must be supported. Let the load be ever so heavy, it must be carried. You would not destroy yourself?"

"No;"—said the other slowly; "no. I would not do that. If any one would do it for me!"

"No one will do it for you. Not to have some plan of active life, some defined labour by which the weariness of the time may be conquered, would be a weakness and a cowardice next door to that of suicide."

"Roden," said the lord, "your severity is brutal."

"The question is whether it be true. You shall call it what you like,—or call me what you like; but can you contradict what I say? Do you not feel that it is your duty as a man to apply what intellect you have, and what strength, to some purpose?"

Then, by degrees, Lord Hampstead did explain the purpose he had before him. He intended to have a yacht built, and start alone, and cruise about the face of the world. He would take books with him, and study the peoples and the countries which he visited.

"Alone?" asked Roden.

"Yes, alone;—as far as a man may be alone with a crew and a captain around him. I shall make acquaintances as I go, and shall be able to bear them as such. They will know nothing of my secret wound. Had I you with me,—you and my sister let us suppose,—or Vivian, or any one from here who had known me, I could not even struggle to raise my head."

"It would wear off."

"I will go alone; and if occasion offers I will make fresh acquaintances. I will begin another life which shall have no connection with the old one,—except that which will be continued by the thread of my own memory. No one shall be near me who may even think of her name when my own ways and manners are called in question." He went on to explain that he would set himself to work at once. The ship must be built, and the crew collected, and the stores prepared. He thought that in this way he might find employment for himself till the spring. In the spring, if all was ready, he would start. Till that time came he would live at Hendon Hall,—still alone. He so far relented, however, as to say that if his sister was married before he began his wanderings he would be present at her marriage.

Early in the course of the evening he had explained to Roden that his father and he had conjointly arranged to give Lady Frances ￡40,000 on her wedding. "Can that be necessary?" asked Roden.

"You must live; and as you have gone into a nest with the drones, you must live in some sort as the drones do."

"I hope I shall never be a drone."

"You cannot touch pitch and not be defiled. You\'ll be expected to wear gloves and drink fine wine,—or, at any rate, to give it to your friends. Your wife will have to ride in a coach. If she don\'t people will point at her, and think she\'s a pauper, because she has a handle to her name. They talk of the upper ten thousand. It is as hard to get out from among them as it is to get in among them. Though you have been wonderfully stout about the Italian title, you\'ll find that it will stick to you." Then it was explained that the money, which was to be given, would in no wise interfere with the "darlings." Whatever was to be added to the fortune which would naturally have belonged to Lady Frances, would come not from her father but from her brother.

When Roden arrived at Castle Hautboy Lord Persiflage was there, though he remained but for a day. He was due to be with the Queen for a month,—a duty which was evidently much to his taste, though he affected to frown over it as a hardship. "I am sorry, Roden," he said, "that I should be obliged to leave you and everybody else;—but a Government hack, you know, has to be a Government hack." This was rather strong from a Secretary of State to a Clerk in the Post Office; but Roden had to let it pass lest he should give an opening to some remark on his own repudiated rank. "I shall be back before you are gone, I hope, and then perhaps we may arrange something." The only thing that Roden wished to arrange was a day for his own wedding, as to which, as far as he knew, Lord Persiflage could have nothing to say.

"I don\'t think you ought to be sorry," Lady Frances said to her lover as they were wandering about on the mountains. He had endeavoured to explain to her that this large income which was now promised to him rather impeded than assisted the scheme of life which he had suggested to himself.

"Not sorry,—but disappointed, if you know the difference."

"Not exactly."

"I had wanted to feel that I should earn my wife\'s bread."

"So you shall. If a man works honestly for his living, I don\'t think he need inquire too curiously what proportion of it may come from his own labour or from some other source. If I had had nothing we should have done very well without the coach,—as poor Hampstead calls it. But if the coach is there I don\'t see why we shouldn\'t ride in it."

"I should like to earn the coach too," said Roden.

"This, sir, will be a lesson serviceable in teaching you that you are not to be allowed to have your own way in everything."

An additional leave of absence for a month had been accorded to Roden. He had already been absent during a considerable time in the spring of the year, and in the ordinary course of events would not have been entitled to this prolonged indulgence. But there were reasons deemed to be sufficient. He was going to meet a Cabinet Minister. He was engaged to marry the daughter of a Marquis. And it was known tha............