In the afternoon, after lunch had been eaten, there came a ring at the back-door, and Mr Montagu Blake was announced. There had been a little contretemps or misadventure. It was Mr Blake\'s habit when he called at Croker\'s Hall to ride his horse into the yard, there to give him up to Hayonotes, and make his way in by the back entrance. On this occasion Hayonotes had been considerably disturbed in his work, and was discussing the sad condition of Mr Baggett with Thornybush over the gate of the kitchen-garden. Consequently, Mr Blake had taken his own horse into the stable, and as he was about to lead the beast up to the stall, had been stopped and confused by Sergeant Baggett\'s protruding wooden leg.

"\'Alloa! what\'s up now?" said a voice, addressing Mr Blake from under the straw. "Do you go down, old chap, and get us three-penn\'orth of cream o\' the valley from the Cock."

Then Mr Blake had been aware that this prior visitor was not in a condition to be of much use to him, and tied up his own horse in another stall. But on entering the house, Mr Blake announced the fact of there being a stranger in the stables, and suggested that the one-legged gentleman had been looking at somebody taking a glass of gin. Then Mrs Baggett burst out into a loud screech of agony. "The nasty drunken beast! he ought to be locked up into the darkest hole they\'ve got in all Alresford."

"But who is the gentleman?" said Mr Blake.

"My husband, sir; I won\'t deny him. He is the cross as I have to carry, and precious heavy he is. You must have heard of Sergeant Baggett;—the most drunkenest, beastliest, idlest scoundrel as ever the Queen had in the army, and the most difficultest for a woman to put up with in the way of a husband! Let a woman be ever so decent, he\'d drink her gowns and her petticoats, down to her very underclothing. How would you like, sir, to have to take up with such a beast as that, after living all your life as comfortable as any lady in the land? Wouldn\'t that be a come-down, Mr Blake? And then to have your box locked up, and be told that the key of your bedroom door is in the master\'s pocket." Thus Mrs Baggett continued to bewail her destiny.

Mr Blake having got rid of the old woman, and bethinking himself of the disagreeable incidents to which a gentleman with a larger establishment than his own might be liable, made his way into the sitting-room, where he found Mary Lawrie alone; and having apologised for the manner of his intrusion, and having said something intended to be jocose as to the legs of the warrior in the stable, at once asked a question as to John Gordon.

"Mr Gordon!" said Mary. "He was here this morning with Mr Whittlestaff, but I know nothing of him since."

"He hasn\'t gone back to London?"

"I don\'t know where he has gone. He slept in Alresford last night, but I know nothing of him since."

"He sent his bag by the boy at the inn down to the railway station when he came up here. I found his bag there, but heard nothing of him. They told me at the inn that he was to come up here, and I thought I should either find him here or meet him on the road."

"Do you want to find him especially?"

"Well, yes."

"Do you know Mr Gordon?"

"Well, yes; I do. That is to say, he dined with me last night. We were at Oxford together, and yesterday evening we got talking about our adventures since."

"He told you that he had been at the diamond-fields?"

"Oh, yes; I know all about the diamond-fields. But Mr Hall particularly wants to see him up at the Park." (Mr Hall was the squire with four daughters who lived at Little Alresford.) "Mr Hall says that he knew his father many years ago, and sent me out to look for him. I shall be wretched if he goes away without coming to Little Alresford House. He can\'t go back to London before four o\'clock, because there is no train. You know nothing about his movements?"

"Nothing at all. For some years past Mr Gordon has been altogether a stranger to me." Mr Blake looked into her face, and was aware that there was something to distress her. He at once gathered from her countenance that Mr Whittlestaff had been like the dog that stuck to his bone, and that John Gordon was like the other dog—the disappointed one—and had been turned out from the neighbourhood of the kennel. "I should imagine that Mr Gordon has gone away, if not to London, then in some other direction." It was clear that the young lady intended him to understand that she could say nothing and knew nothing as to Mr Gordon\'s movements.

"I suppose I must go down to the station and leave word for him there," said Mr Blake. Miss Lawrie only shook her head. "Mr Hall will be very sorry to miss him. And then I have some special good news to tell him."

"Special good news!" Could it be that something had happened which would induce Mr Whittlestaff to change his mind. That was the one subject which to her, at the present moment, was capable of meaning specially good tidings.

"Yes, indeed, Miss Lawrie; double good news, I may say. Old Mr Harbottle has gone at last at San Remo." Mary did know who Mr Harbottle was,—or had been. Mr Harbottle had been the vicar at Little Alresford, for whose death Mr Blake was waiting, in order that he might enter in together upon the good things of matrimony and the living. He was a man so contented, and talked so frequently of the good things which Fortune was to do for him, that the tidings of his luck had reached even the ears of Mary Lawrie. "That\'s an odd way of putting it, of course," continued Mr Blake; "but then he was quite old and very asthmatic, and couldn\'t ever come back again. Of course I\'m very sorry for him,—in one way; but then I\'m very glad in another. It is a good thing to have the house in my own hands, so as to begin to paint at once, ready for her coming. Her father wouldn\'t let her be married till I had got the living, and I think he was right, because I shouldn\'t have liked to spend money in painting and such like on an uncertainty. As the old gentleman had to die, why shouldn\'t I tell the truth? Of course I am glad, though it does sound so terrible."

"But what are the double good news?"

"Oh, I didn\'t tell you. Miss Forrester is to come to the Park. She is not coming because Mr Harbottle is dead. That\'s only a coincidence. We are not going to be married quite at once,—straight off the reel, you know. I shall have to go to Winchester for that. But now that old Harbottle has gone, I\'ll get the day fixed; you see if I don\'t. But I must really be off, Miss Lawrie. Mr Hall will be terribly vexed if I don\'t find Gordon, and there\'s no knowing where he may go whilst I\'m talking here." Then he made his adieux, but returned before he had shut the door after him. "You couldn\'t send somebody with me, Miss Lawrie? I shall be afraid of that wooden-legged man in the stables, for fear he should get up and abuse me. He asked me to get him some gin,—which was quite unreasonable." But on being assured that he would find the groom about the place, he went out, and the trot of his horse was soon heard upon the road.

He did succeed in finding John Gordon, who was listlessly waiting at the Claimant\'s Arms for the coming of the four o\'clock train which was to take him back to London, on his way, as he told himself, to the diamond-fields. He had thrown all his heart, all the energy of which he was the master, into the manner in which he had pleaded for himself and for Mary with Mr Whittlestaff. But he felt the weakness of his position in that he could not remain present upon the ground and see the working of his words. Having said what he had to say, he could only go; and it was not to be expected that the eloquence of an absent man, of one who had declared that he was about to start for South Africa, should be regarded. He knew that what he had said was true, and that, being true, it ought to prevail; but, having declared it, there was nothing for him to do but to go away. He could not see Mary herself again, nor, if he did so, would she be so likely to yield to him as was Mr Whittlestaff. He could have no further excuse f............