Six months had gone by since Dandy Chater—(or Philip Chater as he really was)—stood on trial for his life; and with the turn of the year, Quist’s Royal Circus and Unparalleled Combination of Equestrian Talent had come again to Bamberton. Judging by the appearance of the Captain as he sat smoking his pipe on the steps of his caravan, the venture had been so far a profitable one; for the Captain was somewhat rounded and ruddier even than of old.

It was the afternoon of a warm and sunny day, and the Captain was evidently very well pleased with the day and the world in general and himself in particular; for he smiled and chuckled over his pipe and gave himself sundry little soft slaps on the leg as though he had some joke which he greatly relished. Finding presently that it was quite impossible to keep the joke to himself, he threw his head back a little and called softly through the open door of the caravan.

“Missis!”

A muffled voice inside demanded to know what he wanted.

“Where’s them there two turtle-doves?” asked the Captain in a heavy whisper.

A sound as of some one moving in the caravan was heard, and then Mrs. Quist came to the door and stood above him. And Mrs. Quist—grim red-headed female that she was—actually smiled also and kicked Captain Quist softly in the small of the back.

“Go ’long with yer!” she said laughing. “It’s a pity there shouldn’t be some on ’em as plays the turtle-dove a bit! We ain’t all like you was—I believe you’d a done your courtin’ through a speakin’ trumpet of you’d ’ad your way—you was that public. An’ I’m sure, considerin’ as ’ow they’ve only bin married this mornin’, you might giv’ ’em time to say a word or two to each other.”

“Ole gal,” responded the Captain solemnly—“w’en I said ‘turtle-doves’ it were not to be took sarcastic. I honours ’im for ’is feelin’, an’ I fairly dotes on ’er blushes.”

Mrs. Quist administered another kick to the Captain but seemed well pleased.

“You an’ me, ole gal, ’ad not the figger ’eads for beauty w’en we stood up afore the parson; we might ’ave bin useful in our stations—but there’s no denyin’ as we was ’omely; pleasant to look upon if yer like—but ’omely.”

“Well—yer needn’t rub it in,” retorted Mrs. Quist.

“Far be it from me so to do, ole gal. But wot I would say is this ’ere; that it’s a delight for to look on them young ’uns as was married this mornin’. Adam an’ Eve in the garding of Eden a goin’ ’alves with the apple weren’t a prettier picture than ’Arry an’ Clara—take my word of it.”

“Well Peter—I will say this for yer; that it was a good day’s work for you w’en you done the ’andsome by them young people. We ’aven’t any chicks of our own—an’ that boy ’as got sich a way with ’osses, that ’e was fairly born to look arter a circus. An’ the gel—well, I took a fancy to that child w’en fust she come to lodge with me at Chelmsford.”

Mrs. Quist, with another friendly kick, returned into the caravan, and the Captain continued to smoke his pipe. Indeed, so engrossed was he with the pipe and with his own pleasant reflections, that he did not observe very closely a figure coming along the road towards him; or if he looked at it at all, saw in it merely a chance traveller and no concern of his. But presently as the figure drew nearer, a remarkable change came over the Captain. Gradually the hand which held the pipe came away from his mouth, bringing the pipe with it, but leaving the mouth open; the placidity of the Captain’s face changed and melted away, and in its place came an expression of blank amazement. Then as the figure came nearer still, amazement fled, and with a shout the Captain leapt to the ground and ran forward.

“Phil Chater! Phil Chater come back to see ’is old pal!” he exclaimed, shaking the new-comer’s hand again and again.

It was the Philip of six months before, save only for a certain weariness about the eyes and some lines in the face which had not been there before. He stopped the Captain with a gesture of his hand when that gentleman in his excitement would have summoned Mrs. Quist to share his joy, and they sat down together on the bank beside the patch of grass on which the caravan stood.

“I wanted to have a chat with you, old friend, before going away again,” said Philip after a pause. “So—coming to Bamberton to-day—for the last time—on business, I thought as I heard that the circus was here that I’d walk over. And how are you prospering?”

“Never better,” replied the Captain rubbing his hands. “Whether it is, Phil, that the experience I gained, so to speak, in a life on the rollin’ main is valuable—or wot it is, I don’t know; but certain it is that they comes to my circus w’erever I ’appens to stop—an’ they claps their ’ands to a quite remarkable extent, an’ they laughs at the clown over ’is oldest jokes, min’ yer—things as my poor ole mother used to ’ush me ter sleep with—in sich a way that the chap is a beginnin’ to give ’isself airs. You remember the melancholy lookin’ man wot ’auled you out of the fly that night on this ’ere very road—don’t yer? Well—I do assure you, Phil, that that chap is a gettin’ fat on applause alone; ’is things ’as bin let out twice in two months.”

“I’m delighted to hear it,” said Philip laughing. “And how is Mrs. Quist?”

“Fine—an’ ’earty,” responded the Captain. “More than all she’s a beginnin’ to take an interest in ’osses an’ talks sometimes as if she’d lived over a stable all ’er days. But—now you’ll be surprised to ’ear this, Phil, I know you will—she won’t ’ear of no fat ladies. Puts ’er foot on ’em, so to speak, I do assure you.”

“Really?” said Philip, hiding a smile. “You surprise me. But now I want to talk for a moment about myself; for I may not have a chance of speaking to you again—at any time.”

The Captain looked at him in dismay. “Why—wot do yer mean, Phil, my lad?” he said.

“Well—to tell you the truth at once—I’m going abroad,” replied Philip. “I made a mistake from one point of view in ever coming back at all; I’ve brought endless misery on any number of innocent heads and have done no good—for I’m poorer than when I came. My unfortunate brother had practically got rid of everything that could be disposed of and owed money all the way round. When after my release I came to look into affairs, I found—or rather I was advised—that I need not pay a single penny of his debts; that as they had been contracted by him while the property was not his, but mine, as the elder brother, I might repudiate everything. But of course I couldn’t do that; I made up my mind to get rid of the place and pay as much as possible of what was owing.”

“An’ did you?” asked the Captain.

Philip laughed somewhat bitterly. “Why no,” he said. “For I found when it came to the point of selling that I had nothing to sell; a certain Jew money-lender held a mortgage on the place and on every stick it contained. He’s selling it up to-day, at this very hour. No, old friend, the game is played out; and I start the world once more. I have enough to carry me back to Australia and to give me a little start there; and I sail in a few days’ time.”

The Captain was evidently very much depressed, for he slowly shook his head and looked at the ground with a troubled face. Philip Chater rallyingly clapped him on the shoulder and began to talk of other things.

“Come,” he said, “you must have lots of things to talk to me about—and any amount of news for me. There is one thing I should like to know very much; what has become of little Clara Siggs?”

As if in answer to the question, the Captain raised his head and softly touched Philip on the arm. “See there she comes, Phil,” he said, “an’ under safe convoy!”

Philip Chater, looking in the same direction, saw advancing towards them the girlish form of Clara leaning on the arm of Harry Routley. He sprang up to meet them and the girl advanced alone.

For a moment there was silence between them; the Captain had drawn apart and was talking with Harry. Then Clara, looking up into Philip’s face, told the end of her story so far as it could concern him.

“Mr. Chater—I was married this morning—and am the happiest girl on earth. When I tried to tell Harry that I had once in my wild wayward fashion cared for your brother—he would not let me speak; he kissed my lips to silence me. I thought that I should like you to know that I am very, very happy; that I am with people who are good to me, and whom I love and respect, and that whatever mad dream was once in my foolish heart is buried as deep as the brother you never knew in life.”

His heart was too full in that hour of parting to say anything in reply; he held her hand for a moment and then turned towards Harry.

“You thought badly of me once, Harry—and I’m afraid you’ve been blaming yourself ever since for any trouble you may have caused me. Don’t think of it any more; you, like every one else, were working in the dark. Now you understand and we part the best of friends—don’t we?”

A little later Philip Chater set off towards Bamberton; something seemed to draw him to the place as it had never done before. He knew that the sale had taken place that day and that Chater Hall was lost to the Chaters forever; but he had a morbid desire to see it once again that he might carry away with him the remembrance of the home which had never been his, into whatever exile he might be going.

It was almost dark when he traversed that long winding path which he had once watched as a fugitive through a whole day. But he came at last to the place and noticed, in the desolation of his heart, that the great hall door stood open and that all within seemed blank and empty.

“I wonder who has bought it,” he muttered to himself, “and who will live here in the years to come.”

There seemed to be no one about, and he walked in and turned into that room into which he had first gone on the occasion of his coming to Bamberton. And being in the room stopped dead with his heart beating suffocatingly; for there was a figure standing in one of the windows.

He knew, even in the semi-darkness of the place, that it was Madge Barnshaw before she turned her head or spoke; something in the mere fact of her being there told him that. He would have given anything not to have met her at that time and in that place; but there was no possibility of his getting away—for she turned and saw him.

She came quickly towards him and almost before he knew her hand was in his and she was looking straight into his eyes. “I wanted to see you,” she said slowly. “I waited here—strange as it may seem—in the hope that you would come.”

“Would it not have been better,” he replied bitterly, “if you had never seen me at all?”

She shook her head and a smile played for a moment about her lips. “That is an ungenerous thing to say,” she replied. “Surely it is right that we should meet here—in your home.”

“Mine no longer,” he said. “It was sold to-day to pay some of the debts I took upon me when I took the name of Dandy Chater.”

“Well—and do you know who bought it?” she asked almost in a whisper.

Something in her face as she bent nearer to him, still holding his hands, seemed to answer the question without the need of any word from him. She went on rapidly.

“When you first came to me, Philip, my heart was full of pity for a man who had professed his love for me often and often. Fool that I was, I never saw that a better man stood in his place—spoke with his voice—wooed me for his own sake and not because of his dead brother! Philip, you spoke just now of debts you have paid—and I know of burdens you have borne—for the sake of that brother. Philip”—she came nearer to him in the darkness—“there is another debt you must pay if you will, another burden you must bear. You have taken upon yourself the name of Dandy Chater, be Dandy Chater still to me—and love me!”

He held her in his arms even while he tried to reason with his heart that it was not just nor fair. But when she thrust the deeds of the house in his hands; when she went upon her knees to him and raised her pure face to his; when she prayed that he would take the place that was his, in his home and in her heart; what could he say?

In effect it was all summed up clearly and fairly that night by Mrs. Betty Siggs in the housekeeper’s room to Mrs. Dolman in a moment of confidence.

“The sins as Master Dandy did ’as bin wiped out an’ nothing need be said about ’em. Mark my words, Mrs. Dolman, the time is coming when a new Dandy Chater is a goin’ to reign at the ’All—a Chater as’ll be a squire in summing more than name! An’ more than that, Mum, there won’t be no mistakes about this one; for ’e’s my dear boy, an’ there ain’t another like ’im in the wide world. An’ so, Mum,”—Mrs. Siggs raised her glass before her smiling face, for they were discussing supper—“I gives yer as a toast—‘The Second Dandy Chater.’”