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Mrs. Warrender rose to her feet at once; her heart rising too almost with pleasure to the thrill of a new event. She hurried out to open the door of a large vacant room on the ground floor. "What was Lord Markland doing here?" she said. "He ought to have reached home long ago."

"He has been in that house in the village, mother. They seemed to think everybody would understand. I don't know what he has to do there."

"He has nothing to do there. Oh, Theo, that poor young wife of his! And had he the heart to go from—from—us, in our trouble—there!"

"He seems to have paid for it, whatever was wrong in it. Go back to the drawing-room, for here they are coming."

"Theo, they are carrying him as if he were——"

"Go back to the drawing-room, mother. Whatever it is, it cannot be helped," Theodore said. He did not mean it, but there was something in his tone which reminded everybody—the servants, who naturally came rushing to see what was the matter, and Mrs. Warrender, who withdrew at his bidding—that he was now the master of the house.