"Yes. He writes her name as if I ought to know all about her. He is still groping in the dark, he says, but he hopes to fathom the mystery of Léonie Lemarque's death."
There was no answer. Mr. Wyllard was absorbed by the paper.
"You were not listening, Julian."
"O, yes, I was. Léonie Lemarque—a French name. We were right, then, in supposing that the girl was French?"
He laid aside the newspaper, and began to open his letters; but he said not a word more about Heathcote's news. Dora felt that he might have been more interested—more sympathetic. It was her cousin whose reputation and happiness were at stake. Affection for her should have made these things of greater moment to her husband.
Bothwell came home in time for the eight-o'clock dinner, and in excellent spirits. He had seen an old cottage standing in a large garden, with a fine old orchard adjoining, a cottage which could be converted, by considerable additions, into a capital house for himself and his pupils. The situation was superb. The cottage stood on a height, near the junction of two roads, and it commanded magnificent views of sea and coast.
"I could make the additions I want for three or four hundred pounds," he told Dora, when he was alone with her in the drawing-room after dinner. "I should be my own architect and my own builder. I should only have to pay for labour and materials. I did a goodish deal in the building line when I was in the army, you know, Dora, supervising the alterations of the Jungapore barracks. I know more about bricks and mortar than you would give me credit for knowing."
He had previously confided his idea of taking pupils, and Dora had approved, and had promised her heartiest coöperation. He was sure of her sympathy with all his endeavours to win an honourable independence at home. The idea of his emigrating had always been unwelcome to her.
"And now, Dora, I am going to make a very audacious proposition," he said, when he had finished his description of the cottage at Trevena. "I want you to lend me seven hundred pounds, to be repaid in half-yearly instalments of one hundred pounds during the next three years and a half, with or without interest, as you may think fit."
"Suppose we say nothing about the repayment, Bothwell," said his cousin, smiling at him as she looked up from her embroidery. "You shall have the seven hundred pounds; and we will decide by and by whether it is to be a loan or a gift."
"Dora, you are too generous—" he began.
"Nonsense, Bothwell. I always intended to furnish you
