to have lost all power of concentration. For once his brain had failed
him. The shadowy companions who stood ever between him and solitude
remained uninvoked. His cigar had burnt out between his fingers. He threw
it impatiently away. These were the days, the hours he dreaded.

Clara came down the garden from the house, and seeing him, crossed the
lawn and sat down beside him.

"Why, my dear uncle," she exclaimed, "you look almost as dull as I feel!
Let us be miserable together!"

"With all my heart," he answered. "Whilst we are about it, can we invent
a cause?"

"Invent!" she repeated. "I do not think we need either of us look very
far. Every one seems to have gone away whose presence made this place
endurable. Uncle, do you know when Mrs. Handsell is coming back? She
promised to write, and I have never heard a word!"

Mannering turned his head. A little rustling wind had stolen in from
seaward. Above their heads flights of sea-gulls were floating out towards
the creeks. He watched them idly until they dropped down.

"I do not think that she will come back at all," he said, quietly.
"I heard to-day that the place was to let again."

"And Sir Leslie Borrowdean?"

"I think you may take it for granted," Mannering remarked, dryly, "that
we shall see no more of him."