bedside.

"Much obliged, Julius, for your congratulations. Men of my sort are not
easily killed. (Look at Brougham and Lyndhurst!) You won't be called to
the Upper House yet. You will begin in the House of Commons--precisely
as I wished. What are your prospects with the constituency? Tell me
exactly how you stand, and where I can be of use to you."

"Surely, Sir, you are hardly recovered enough to enter on matters of
business yet?"

"I am quite recovered enough. I want some present interest to occupy
me. My thoughts are beginning to drift back to past times, and to things
which are better forgotten." A sudden contraction crossed his livid
face. He looked hard at his son, and entered abruptly on a new question.
"Julius!" he resumed, "have you ever heard of a young woman named Anne
Silvester?"

Julius answered in the negative. He and his wife had exchanged cards
with Lady Lundie, and had excused themselves from accepting her
invitation to the lawn-party. With the exception of Blanche, they were
both quite ignorant of the persons who composed the family circle at
Windygates.

"Make a memorandum of the name," Lord Holchester went on. "Anne
Silvester. Her father and mother are dead. I knew her father in former
times. Her mother was ill-used. It was a bad business. I have been
thinking of it again, for the first time for many years. If the girl is
alive and about the world she may remember our family name. Help
her, Julius, if she ever wants help, and applies to you." The painful