up at him, her clasped hands beneath her upturned chin.

How could any man, however cold, reserved, remote, inimical to her cause,
even, turn a deaf ear to such an appeal, remain adamant before her
helplessness, her trustfulness, her childish beauty and self-abandonment!

"Who sent you to me?" he asked.

"No one. I came," she whispered. The change in his tone had weakened her,
she began to shake from head to foot.

"They should have picked on a fitter person for such an errand. It is a
cruelty to have sent such a child as you," he said.

He held out his hand to raise her; but Reggie went to her and lifted her
and placed her in a comfortable chair. "It'll be all right. He'll do it.
Don't you fret," he whispered, soothing her.

She did not heed him, her eyes were on the elder man, who had gone to a
cupboard in the room from whence he produced a decanter of sherry. It was
in that primitive time when in trouble of mind or body, to "take a glass
of wine" was the customary thing. He was always stiff and distant in
bearing, and just now he was annoyed and aggrieved to feel that he was
being "had," as the word of a later age puts it. But his heart was sound.
To look on that trembling, frightened child, and to remember the errand on
which she had been sent he found to be an upsetting thing.

"Sip a little sherry," he said, and passed the glass to his brother to
hold to her lips.