"Ah, that we never know, my child; there's always something worse behind the worst… ." Mr. Lorburn, shaking his head, turned back slowly through the drawing room. "There's my health, to begin with, which no one but myself ever appears to think of. A shock of this kind, in this heat … "

"Well, here's Vance Weston, who has come, as I knew he would, to clear things up."

Mr. Lorburn considered Vance again in the light of this fresh introduction. "I should be glad if he could do that," he said.

"Then," said Miss Spear briskly, "let's begin by transporting ourselves to the scene of the crime, as they say in the French law reports."

She slipped her arm in Mr. Lorburn's, and led him through the two drawing rooms, his long wavering stride steadied by her firm tread. Vance followed, wondering.

In the library the shutters were open, and the western sun streamed in on the scene of disorder which Vance had left so lightheartedly three days before. He wondered at his own callousness. In the glare of the summer light the room looked devastated, dishonoured; and the long grave face of Miss Elinor Lorburn, with its chalky highlights on brow and lappets, seemed to appeal to her cousin and heir for redress. "See how they have profaned my solitude—that, at least, my family always respected!"

Mr. Lorburn let himself down by cautious degrees into the Gothic armchair. "At least," he echoed, as if answering the look, "if I never came here, I gave strict orders that nothing should be touched … that everything should remain absolutely as she left it."

The words were dreadful to Vance. His eyes followed Mr. Lorburn's about the room, resting on the books pitched down on chairs and tables, on the gaping spaces of the shelves, and the lines of volumes which had collapsed for lack of support. Then he looked at the cigarette ashes which Lorry Spear had scattered irreverently on the velvet table cover, and his gaze turned back to Mr. Lorburn's scandalized countenance. He felt too crushed to speak. But Miss Spear spoke for him:

"Now, Cousin Tom, that all sounds very pretty; but just consider what would have happened if we'd obeyed you literally. The place would have been a foot deep in dust. Everything in it would have been ruined; and if the house hadn't been regularly aired your precious books would have been covered with green mould. So what's the use—"

Vance lifted his head eagerly, reassured by her voice. "The books did need cleaning," he said. "But I was wrong not to put them back after I'd wiped them, the way you told me to. Fact is, I'd never had a chance at real books before, and I got reading, and forgot everything… ." He looked at Miss Spear. "I'm sorry," he said.