Sir Cradock went to the door, and gently ordered the child away. But the interruption had been enough—ibi omnis effusus labor. When he returned and faced John Rosedew the manner of his visage was altered. The child had reminded him of her mother, and that graceful, gushing, loving nature, which tried so hard not to doubt the minister. So he did what a man in the wrong generally does instinctively; he swept back the tide of war into his adversaryʼs country.

“You take a very strong interest, sir, in one whose nearest relations have been compelled to abandon him.”

“I thought that your greatest grievance with him was that he had abandoned you.”

“Excuse me; I cannot split hairs. All I mean is that something has come to my knowledge—not through the proper channel, not from those who ought to have told me—something which makes your advocacy seem a little less disinterested than I might have supposed it to be[45].”

“Have the kindness to tell me what it is.”

“Oh, perhaps a mere nothing. But it seems a significant rumour.”

“What rumour, if you please?”

“That my—that Cradock Nowell is attached to your daughter, who behaved so ill to me. Of course, it is not true?”

“Perfectly true, every word of it.” And John Rosedew looked at Sir Cradock Nowell as proudly as ever a father looked. Amy, in his opinion, was peeress for any mortal. And perhaps he was not presumptuous.

“Ah!” was the o