“Yes?  The fellow who brought me a note from my brother this morning?”

“He’s expected back, Sir—­he’s afraid he mustn’t wait any longer.”

“Come here, and I’ll give you the answer for him.”

He led the way to the writing-table, and referred to Julius’s letter again.  He ran his eye carelessly over it, until he reached the final lines:  “Come to-morrow, and help us to receive Mrs. Glenarm.”  For a while he paused, with his eye fixed on that sentence; and with the happiness of three people—­of Anne, who had loved him; of Arnold, who had served him; of Blanche, guiltless of injuring him—­resting on the decision that guided his movements for the next day.  After what had passed that morning between Arnold and Blanche, if he remained at Lady Lundie’s, he had no alternative but to perform his promise to Anne.  If he returned to his brother’s house, he had no alternative but to desert Anne, on the infamous pretext that she was Arnold’s wife.

He suddenly tossed the letter away from him on the table, and snatched a sheet of note-paper out of the writing-case.  “Here goes for Mrs. Glenarm!” he said to himself; and wrote back to his brother, in one line:  “Dear Julius, Expect me to-morrow.  G. D.”  The impassible man-servant stood by while he wrote, looking at his magnificent breadth of chest, and thinking what a glorious “staying-power” was there for the last terrible mile of the coming race.

“There you are!” he said, and handed his note to the man.

“All right, Geoffrey?” asked a friendly voice behind him.

He turned—­and saw Arnold, anxious for news of the consultation with Sir Patrick.

“Yes,” he said.  “All right.”

------------ NOTE.--There are certain readers who feel a
disposition to doubt Facts, when they meet with them in a work of
fiction.  Persons of this way of thinking may be profitably
referred to the book which first suggested to me the idea of
writing the present Novel.  The book is the Report of the Royal
Commissioners on The Laws of Marriage.  Published by the Queen’s
Printers For her Majesty’s Stationery Office. (London, 1868.)
What Sir Patrick says professionally of Scotch Marriages in this
chapter is taken from this high authority.  What the lawyer (in
the Prologue) says professionally of Irish Marriages is also
derived from the same source.  It is needless to encumber these
pages with quotations.  But as a means of satisfying my readers
that they may depend on me, I subjoin an extract from my list of
references to the Report of the Marriage Commission, which any
persons who may be so inclined can verify for themselves.

     Irish Marriages (In the Prologue).—­See Report, pages XII.,
     XIII., XXIV.