irrevocably withdrawn. I myself," added the Colonel, "shall be going
abroad very shortly for the rest of the summer; and should Mr. Losely, in
the mean while, think better of a proposal which secures him from want, I
refer him to Mr. Darrell's solicitor. To that proposal, according to
your account of his destitution, he must come sooner or later; and I am
glad to see that he has in yourself so judicious an adviser"--
a compliment which by no means consoled the miserable Poole.

In the briefest words, Alban informed Darrell of his persuasion that
Jasper was not only without evidence to support a daughter's claim, but
that the daughter herself was still in that part of Virgil's Hades
appropriated to souls that have not yet appeared upon the upper earth;
and that Jasper himself, although holding back, as might be naturally
expected, in the hope of conditions more to his taste, had only to be
left quietly to his own meditations in order to recognise the advantages
of emigration. Another L100 a-year or so, it is true, he might bargain
for, and such a demand might be worth conceding. But, on the whole,
Alban congratulated Darrell upon the probability of hearing very little
more of the son-in-law, and no more at all of the son-in-law's daughter.

Darrell made no comment nor reply. A grateful look, a warm pressure of
the hand, and, when the subject was changed, a clearer brow and livelier
smile, thanked the English Alban better than all words.




CHAPTER XIII.

COLONEL MORLEY SHOWS THAT IT IS NOT WITHOUT REASON THAT HE ENJOYS