Brooks was very grave, and his face was curiously pale.

“Are you quite sure?” he asked.

“Certain!”

They walked on in silence for a few moments.

“You have asked me a very difficult question,” he said at last.  “She has had a very unhappy sort of life.  Her father and mother died in Canada—­her father shot himself, and her mother died of the shock.  She went to live with an uncle at Medchester, who was good to her, but his household could scarcely have been very congenial.  I met her there—­she was interested in charitable works then, and she came to London to try and attain some sort of independence.  At first she had a position on a lady’s magazine which took up her mornings, but we have just induced her to accept a small salary and give us all her time.”  “That seems like a comprehensive sketch of her life,” Sybil remarked, thoughtfully, “but are you sure—­that you have not missed anything out?”

“So far as I know,” he answered, gravely, “there is nothing new to tell.”

They walked the rest of the way to Berkeley Square in absolute silence.

“You will come in to lunch?” she said.

He looked down at his clothes.

“I think not,” he answered.

“We are almost certain to be alone,” she said.  “You haven’t seen mother for a long time.”

He suffered himself to be persuaded, and almost immediately regretted it.  For there were a dozen people or more round the luncheon-table, and he caught a glimpse of more than one frock coat.  Further, from the dead silence which followed their entrance, it seemed more than probable that he himself had formed the subject of conversation.

Lady Caroom greeted him as kindly as ever, and found a place for him by her side.  Brooks, whose self-possession seldom failed him, smiled to himself as he recognized the bishop, who was his vis-a-vis.  Hennibul, however, from a little lower down nodded to him pleasantly, and Lord Arranmore spoke a few words of dry greeting.

“Your friend Bullsom,” he remarked, “has soon distinguished himself.  He made quite a decent speech the other night on the Tariff Bill.”

“He has common-sense and assurance,” Brooks answered.  “He ought to be a very useful man.”

Lord Hennibul leaned forward and addressed Arranmore with blank surprise on his face.

“You don’t mean to say that you read the debates in the House of Commons, Arranmore?” he exclaimed.

Lord Arranmore shrugged his shoulders.

“Since the degeneration of English humour,” he remarked, “one must go somewhere for one’s humour.”

“I should try the House of Lords, then,” a smart young under-secretary remarked under his breath, with a glance at the bishop.  “There is more hidden humour in the unshaken gravity of the Episcopal Bench than in both Houses of Parliament put together.”

“They take themselves so seriously,” Sybil murmured.