"Frederick's himself again," he quoted, "and he must have been very far off himself when he thought of giving up or of running away. No, Fred Mostyn, you will stay here. 'Tis a country where the impossible does not exist, and the unlikely is sure to happen--a country where marriage is not for life or death, and where the roads to divorce are manifold and easy. There are a score of ways and means. I will stay and think them over; 'twill be odd if I cannot force Fate to change her mind."
A week after Dora's marriage he found himself able to walk up the avenue to the Rawdon house; but he arrived there weary and wan enough to instantly win the sympathy of Ruth and Ethel, and he was immensely strengthened by the sense of home and kindred, and of genuine kindness to which he felt a sort of right. He asked Ruth if he might eat dinner with them. He said he was hungry, and the hotel fare did not tempt him. And when Judge Rawdon returned he welcomed him in the same generous spirit, and the evening passed delightfully away. At its close, however, as Mostyn stood gloved and hatted, and the carriage waited for him, he said a few words to Judge Rawdon which changed the mental and social atmosphere. "I wish to have a little talk with you, sir, on a business matter of some importance. At what hour can I see you to-morrow?"
"I am engaged all day until three in the afternoon, Fred. Suppose I call on you about four or half-past?"
"Very well, sir."
But both Ethel and Ruth wondered if it was "very well." A shadow, fleeting as thought, had passed over Judge Rawdon's face when he heard the request for a business interview, and after the young man's departure he lost himself in a reverie which was evidently not a happy one. But he said nothing to the girls, and they were not accustomed to question him.
The next morning, instead of going direct to his office, he stopped at Madam, his moth-er's house in Gramercy Park. A visit at such an early hour was unusual, and the old lady looked at him in alarm.
"We are well, mother," he said as she rose. "I called to talk to you about a little business." Whereupon Madam sat down, and became suddenly about twenty years younger, for "business" was a word like a watch-cry; she called all her senses together when it was uttered in her presence.