“I’m dying to know the sad news.  The gamekeeper is not shot:  that is settled.  What is it, then?”

“Well, it’s a very trying thing, you know,” said Mr. Brooke.  “I’m glad you and the Rector are here; it’s a family matter—­ but you will help us all to bear it, Cadwallader.  I’ve got to break it to you, my dear.”  Here Mr. Brooke looked at Celia—­ “You’ve no notion what it is, you know.  And, Chettam, it will annoy you uncommonly—­but, you see, you have not been able to hinder it, any more than I have.  There’s something singular in things:  they come round, you know.”

“It must be about Dodo,” said Celia, who had been used to think of her sister as the dangerous part of the family machinery.  She had seated herself on a low stool against her husband’s knee.

“For God’s sake let us hear what it is!” said Sir James.

“Well, you know, Chettam, I couldn’t help Casaubon’s will:  it was a sort of will to make things worse.”

“Exactly,” said Sir James, hastily.  “But what is worse?”

“Dorothea is going to be married again, you know,” said Mr. Brooke, nodding towards Celia, who immediately looked up at her husband with a frightened glance, and put her hand on his knee.  Sir James was almost white with anger, but he did not speak.

“Merciful heaven!” said Mrs. Cadwallader.  “Not to young Ladislaw?”

Mr. Brooke nodded, saying, “Yes; to Ladislaw,” and then fell into a prudential silence.

“You see, Humphrey!” said Mrs. Cadwallader, waving her arm towards her husband.  “Another time you will admit that I have some foresight; or rather you will contradict me and be just as blind as ever. you supposed that the young gentleman was gone out of the country.”

“So he might be, and yet come back,” said the Rector, quietly

“When did you learn this?” said Sir James, not liking to hear any one else speak, though finding it difficult to speak himself.

“Yesterday,” said Mr. Brooke, meekly.  “I went to Lowick.  Dorothea sent for me, you know.  It had come about quite suddenly—­ neither of them had any idea two days ago—­not any idea, you know.  There’s something singular in things.  But Dorothea is quite determined—­it is no use opposing.  I put it strongly to her.  I did my duty, Chettam.  But she can act as she likes, you know.”

“It would have been better if I had called him out and shot him a year ago,” said Sir James, not from bloody-mindedness, but because he needed something strong to say.

“Really, James, that would have been very disagreeable,” said Celia.

“Be reasonable, Chettam.  Look at the affair more quietly,” said Mr. Cadwallader, sorry to see his good-natured friend so overmastered by anger.

“That is not so very easy for a man of any dignity—­with any sense of right—­when the affair happens to be in his own family,” said Sir James, still in his white indignation.  “It is perfectly scandalous.  If Ladislaw had had a spark of honor he would have gone out of the country at once, and never shown his face in it again.  However, I am not surprised.  The day after Casaubon’s funeral I said what ought to be done.  But I was not listened to.”