Two minutes later Terwilliger and the earl appeared in the drawing-room,
the former looking haggard and worn, his eyes feverishly bright, and his
manner betraying the presence of disturbing elements in his nerve centres;
the latter smiling more affably than was consistent with his title, and
jingling a number of gold coins in his pocket, which his intimate friend
and old college chum, Lord Dufferton, on the other side of the room,
marvelled at greatly, for he knew well that upon the earl's arrival at
Bangletop Hall an hour before his pockets were as empty as a flunky's
head.


IV

Terwilliger's time was almost up. The hour for his interview with the
spectre cook of Bangletop was hardly forty-eight hours distant, and he
was wellnigh distracted. No solution of the problem seemed possible since
the earl had so peremptorily declined to fall in with his plan. He was
glad the earl had done so, for otherwise he would have been denied the
tremendous satisfaction which the consummation of an alliance between his
own and one of the oldest and noblest houses of England was about to give
him, not to mention the commercial phase of the situation, which had been
so potent a factor in bringing the engagement about; for Ariadne had said
yes to the earl that same night, and the betrothal was shortly to be
announced. It would have been announced at once, only the earl felt that
he should break the news himself first to his mother, the countess--an
operation which he dreaded, and for which he believed some eight or ten
weeks of time were necessary.

"What is the matter, Judson?" Mrs. Terwilliger asked finally, her husband