What more thankless office is there than to be the bearer of ill news to those we love or regard? Not often in the course of his life had such a duty fallen to the lot of Tom Bristow, and never had the burden seemed so heavy as on this present occasion. He would gladly have given a very fair share of all that he was worth could he but have turned his ill news into good news, or else have imposed upon some one else the telling of those evil tidings of which he was the bearer. From London he had sent a carefully-worded telegram to the Squire, which the latter would know how to interpret, hoping thereby to break in some measure the force of the blow which nothing could much longer avert.

When, on his return to Pincote, Tom was ushered into the Squire\'s room, he found the old man, to all appearance, very much better in health than when he had left him. Mental anxiety had gone a long way towards curing, for the time being, the physical ills from which he had been suffering. He held out his hand, and gave a long, searching look into Tom\'s face.

"All gone?" he whispered.

"Yes--all gone," answered Tom.

He gripped Tom\'s hand very hard. "I did not think it was quite so bad as that," he said. "Not quite. My poor Jenny! My poor little girl! What is to become of her after I\'m gone? And Bird, too! The confidence I had in that villain!" He sighed deeply, dropped Tom\'s hand, and shut his eyes for a few moments, as if in pain.

"You will stay to dinner," he said, presently.

"If you will excuse me to-day----" began Tom.

"But I won\'t excuse you, sir. Why on earth should I?" he answered, with a flash of his old irritability. "The old house is not good enough for you, I suppose, now you know it holds nothing but paupers."

"Thank you, sir: I will stay to dinner," said Tom, quietly.

"It will be a charity to Jenny, too," added the Squire. "She\'s been moped up indoors, without a soul to speak to, for I don\'t know how long. And it\'s more than a month since she heard from young Cope--his letters must have miscarried, you know--and I\'m afraid that\'s preying on her mind; and so you had better keep her company to-day."

Tom needed no further pressing, we may be sure. He smiled grimly to himself at the idea of Edward Cope\'s long silence being a matter of distress to Jane. He rose to go.

"Just ring that bell, will you?" said the Squire. "And sit down again for another minute or two. There\'s something I wanted to say to you, but I can\'t call to mind what it is just now."

Jane answered the bell in person. She gave Tom her hand in silence, but there was a world of meaning in her eyes as she did so.

"My dear, I wish you would see whether Ridley is anywhere about, and send word that I want to see him. What do you think the villain has done?"

"I don\'t know, I\'m sure, papa."

"Why, he\'s planted a lot of white hyacinths along with the purple ones in your poor mother\'s favourite bed opposite the dressing-room window, when he knows very well that I never have any but purple ones there. She never had any but purple ones, and I never will. The scoundrel deserves to be well horsewhipped. I\'ll discharge him on the spot I swear I will!"

"I will tell him to come and see you," said Jane, calmly. She knew of old that her father\'s bark was worse than his bite, and that he had no more real intention of discharging Ridley than he had of flying to the moon.

"And now, if you will just give orders to have the basket-carriage brought round, I shall be glad, dear. I feel wonderfully better to-day, and I think a drive would do me good."

"But would Dr. Davidson approve of your going out to-day, papa?"

"Hang Dr. Davidson I\'m not his slave, am I? I tell you that I feel very much better; and, to get out, if only for half an hour, will make me better still."

"Then you will let me go with you?" said Jane.

"Nothing of the kind. I\'ve a great deal to think about while I\'m out, and I want to be alone. Besides, I\'ve asked Bristow to stay to dinner, and you must do your best to entertain him."

"If you go out, papa, I shall go with you," said Jane, in her straightforward, positive way. "Besides which, Briggs is ill to-day, and there\'s nobody to drive you--unless you will let Mr. Bristow be your coachman for once, and then we shall all be together."

With some difficulty the Squire was induced to consent to this arrangement. It was evident that he would have preferred to go out alone, but that was just what Jane would by no means allow him to do. Her woman\'s instinct told her that they were in the midst of a thunder-cloud, but where and when the lightning would strike she could not even guess. In any case, it seemed to her well that for some time to come her father should be left alone as little as possible.

So they drove out together, all three of them. The Squire was unusually silent, but did not otherwise seem different from his ordinary mood, and neither Tom nor Jane was much inclined for talking. On the road they found a child of six, a little girl who had wandered away from home and lost herself, who was sitting by the roadside crying bitterly. The Squire would have the child on his knee, although she was neither very neatly dressed nor very pretty. He kissed her, and soothed away her tears, and made her laugh, and found out where she lived. Then, in a little while, still sitting on his knee, she fell asleep, and the old man wrapped the thickest rug around her, and sheltered her from the cold as tenderly as though she had been his own child. And when the girl\'s mother was found, and the girl herself had to be given up, he made her kiss him, and put half-a-crown into her hand, and promised to call and see her in a day or two. Tom, watching him narrowly all the time, said to himself, "I don\'t understand him at all to-day. I thought my news would have overwhelmed him, but it seems to have had far less effect upon him than it had upon me. I\'m fairly puzzled." But there are some troubles so overwhelming that, for a time at least, they numb and deaden the feelings by their very intensity. All the more painful is the after-waking.

"I think, dear, that I will go and lie down for a little while," said the Squire, when they had reached home. "You will wake me up in time for dinner."

But there was Blenkinsop, his steward, waiting by appointment, who wanted his signature to the renewal of a lease.

"Yes, yes, to be sure, Blenkinsop," said he Squire, in his old business-like way, as he sat down at his writing-table and spread out the paper before him and dipped his pen in the ink. Then he paused.

"Just your name, sir, nothing more--on that line," said the steward, deferentially, marking the place with his finger.

"Just so, Blenkinsop, just so," said the Squire, tremulously. "But what is my name? Just for the moment I don\'t seem as if I could recollect it."

A look of horror flashed from Jane\'s eyes into the eyes of Tom. She was by her father\'s side in a moment. He looked helplessly up at her, and tried to smile, but his lips quivered and tears stood in his eyes.

"What is it, dear?" she said, as she stooped and pressed her lips to his forehead.

"I want to sign this lease, and for the life of me I can\'t recollect my own name."

"Titus Culpepper, dear," she whispered in his ear.

"Of course. What an idiot I must be!" he exclaimed with a laugh, as he dashed off the name in his usual rapid style, and ended with a bigger flourish than usual.

"Won\'t you go to bed, papa?" said Jane, insinuatingly, as soon as Blenkinsop was gone. "You will rest so much better there, you know."

"Go to bed at this time of day, indeed! What are you thinking about? No, I\'ll just have a little snooze on the sofa--nothing more. And be sure you wake me up in time for dinner."

In less than two minutes he had gone off to sleep, as calmly and quietly as any little child. Jane rejoined Tom in the drawing-room.

"I am afraid that papa has heard some very bad news, Mr. Bristow," she said.

"Yes, and I was the unfortunate bearer of it," answered Tom.

"He sent you to London the other day to make certain private inquiries for him?"

"He did."

"And the ill news you brought this morning is the result of those inquiries?"

"It is."

There was a pause, which Tom was the first to break. "I think it only right, Miss Culpepper," he said, "that you should be made acquainted with the nature of the business which took me to London. You have no brother, and I know that you have had the practical management of many of your father\'s affairs for a long time. It is only right that you should know."

"But I would rather not know, Mr. Bristow, if you think that papa would prefer, in the slightest degree, that I should not be told."

"I think it highly desirable that you should be told," said Tom. "No doubt Mr. Culpepper himself will tell you everything before long."

"I am not so sure on that point," interrupted Jane. "As regards his pecuniary affairs, I know little or nothing, although I have long had my suspicions that there was something wrong somewhere."

"In such a matter as this there should be nothing hidden from you--at least not now; and I will take on myself the responsibility of telling you all that I know. Should Mr. Culpepper himself tell you subsequently, there will be no harm done, while you will have had time to think the affair over, and will be better able to advise him as to what ought to be done under the circumstances. Should he not choose to tell you, I still maintain that it will be better, both for himself and for you, that you should rest in ignorance no longer."

Tom then told her all about his visit to London, its object, and its result.

"Thank heaven that it\'s nothing more serious than the loss of a few thousand pounds!" said Jane, with an air of relief, when Tom had done. "Papa will soon get over that, and we shall be as happy again as ever we have been."

"I am by no means certain that Mr. Culpepper will get over it as easily as you imagine," said Tom, gravely. "I suspect that the entire savings of many years have gone in this crash; and that alone, to a man of your father\'s time of life, is something very serious indeed."

"Don\'t think, Mr. Bristow, that I want to make too light of the loss," said Jane, earnestly. "Still, after all, it is nothing but money."

Her spirits had risen wonderfully during the last few minutes, and she could not help showing it. "Dinner will be ready in half an hour," she added. "I will go and see whether papa is awake."

Presently she came back. "He is still fast asleep," she said.

"I think I would not disturb him if I were you," said Tom. "Sleep, just now, is his best medicine."

As the Squire still slept on, they dined alone, and alone they spent the evening together. They talked of a t............