to her youthful mind it was only a legendary city.

“I don’t want to leave Horsford, dad,” replied the girl with a slight pout. “I want to remain with you.”

“Not in order to see and know your father?”

“You are my dad—my only dad,” she declared quickly. “I don’t want to see my other dad at all,” she added decisively. “If he wants to see me, why doesn’t he come here?”

“He can’t my dear,” replied the doctor. “But tell me. Have you seen Lady Gavin since I’ve been away?”

“No, dad. Mr Farquhar and his sister have come to stay at the Manor, so she’s always engaged.”

“Frank Farquhar is down here again, eh?” asked Diamond quickly. Then he reflected deeply for a few moments.

He was wondering if Farquhar could help him—if he dare take the young man into his confidence.

Nowadays he was “out of it.” He knew nobody, buried there as he was in that rural solitude.

“Is Sir George at home?” he asked the child, who, like all other children, knew the whole gossip of the village.

“No, dad. He started for Egypt yesterday. Will Chapman told me so.”

The Doctor ate his tea, with his wife and five “daughters” of varying ages, all bright, bonnie children, who looked the picture of good health.

Then, after a wash and putting on another suit, he went out, strolling down the village to where the big old Manor House, with its quaint gables and wide porch, stood far back behind its sloping lawn.

Generations of squires of Horsford had lived and died there, as their tombs in the splendid Norman church almost adjoining testified. It was a house where many of the rooms were panelled, where the entrance-hall was of stone, with a well staircase and a real “priests’ hole” on the first floor.

He ascended the steps, and his ring was answered by a smart Italian man-servant. Yes. Mr Farquhar was at home. Would the doctor kindly step into the library?

Diamond entered that well-known room on the right of the hall—a room lined from floor to ceiling with books in real Chippendale bookcases, and in the centre a big old-fashioned writing-table. Over the fireplace were several ancient manuscripts in neat frames, while beside the blazing fire stood 

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