“What is the matter?” said Agatha rising, whilst Jane stared open-mouthed at him.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Wylie, I forgot you.  He pledged me his honor that he would not go by that train.  I will.”  He hurried from the room.  Sir Charles rushed after him, and overtook him at the foot of the stairs.

“Where are you going?  What do you want to do?”

“I will follow the train and catch it at the next station.  I can do it on my bicycle.”

“Nonsense! you’re mad.  They have thirty-five minutes start; and the train travels forty-five miles an hour.”

Erskine sat down on the stairs and gazed blankly at the opposite wall.

“You must have mistaken him,” said Sir Charles.  “He told me to tell you that he had not forgotten his promise, and that you may rely on him.”

“What is the matter?” said Agatha, coming down, followed by Lady Brandon.

“Miss Wylie,” said Erskine, springing up, “he gave me his word that he would not go by that train when I told him Miss Lindsay was going by it.  He has broken his word and seized the opportunity I was mad and credulous enough to tell him of.  If I had been in your place, Brandon, I would have strangled him or thrown him under the wheels sooner than let him go.  He has shown himself in this as in everything else, a cheat, a conspirator, a man of crooked ways, shifts, tricks, lying sophistries, heartless selfishness, cruel cynicism—­” He stopped to catch his breath, and Sir Charles interposed a remonstrance.

“You are exciting yourself about nothing, Chester.  They are in a Pullman, with her maid and plenty of people; and she expressly gave him leave to go with her.  He asked her the question flatly before my face, and I must say I thought it a strange thing for her to consent to.  However, she did consent, and of course I was not in a position to prevent him from going to London if he pleased.  Don’t let us have a scene, old man.  It can’t be helped.”

“I am very sorry,” said Erskine, hanging his head.  “I did not mean to make a scene.  I beg your pardon.”

He went away to his room without another word.  Sir Charles followed and attempted to console him, but Erskine caught his hand, and asked to be left to himself.  So Sir Charles returned to the drawing-room, where his wife, at a loss for once, hardly ventured to remark that she had never heard of such a thing in her life.

Agatha kept silence.  She had long ago come unconsciously to the conclusion that Trefusis and she were the only members of the party at the Beeches who had much common-sense, and this made her slow to believe that he could be in the wrong and Erskine in the right in any misunderstanding between them.  She had a slovenly way of summing up as “asses” people whose habits of thought differed from hers.  Of all varieties of man, the minor poet realized her conception of the human ass most completely, and Erskine, though a very nice