Well, After All--

by Frank Frankfort Moore

It was rather early on the next morning when Agnes Mowbray was visited by Sir Percival Hope. Cyril, who had returned home late on the previous night, and had not gone to bed for nearly an hour after entering the house, was not yet downstairs; but his sister was in her garden when her visitor arrived.

Sir Percival Hope was one of the latest comers to the county. He was the younger son of a good family—the baronetcy was one of the oldest in England—and had gone out to Australia very early in life. In one of the southern colonies he had not only made a fortune, but had won great distinction and had been twice premier before he had reached the age which in England is considered young enough for entering political life. On the death of his father—his elder brother had been killed when serving with his regiment in the Soudan campaign of 1883—he had come to England, not to inherit any estate, for the last acre of the family property had been sold before his birth, but to purchase the estate of Branksome Abbey in Brackenshire, which had once been in his mother's family. He was now close upon forty years of age, and it was said that he was engaged in the somewhat arduous work of nursing the constituency of South Brackenshire. There were few people in the neighbourhood who were disposed to think that when the chance came for him to declare himself he would be rejected. It was generally allowed that he might choose his constituency.

He was a tall and athletic man, with the bronzed face of a southern colonist, and with light-brown hair that had no suggestion of grey about it. As he stood on the lawn at The Knoll by the side of Agnes, and in the shade of one of the great elms, no one would have believed that he was over thirty.

“I got your letter,” said Agnes when she had greeted him with cordiality, for though they had known each other only a year they had become the warmest friends. “I got your letter an hour ago—just when you must have got mine, which I wrote last night. I hope you are able to give me as good news as I gave you.”

“You were able to tell me of the saving of the bank; I hope I can tell you of the saving of a soul,” said Sir Percival.

“I hoped as much,” she cried, her face lighting up as she turned her eyes upon his. “Your sister must be a good woman—as good a woman as you are a man.”

“If you had waited for half an hour when you came to see me yesterday, I could have told you what I come to tell you now,” said he. “But you were in too great a hurry.”

“I had need to make haste,” laughed Agnes. “Every moment was worth hundreds of pounds—perhaps thousands.”

“And the good people were perfectly satisfied with my cheque? Well, they are a good deal more confiding than the colonists to whom I was accustomed in my young days: they would have laughed at the notion of offering them a cheque when they looked for gold, although in the bush cheques are current. Oh no; when they make a run on a bank nothing but gold can satisfy them.”

“I knew what I could do with those people yesterday. They only needed some one to arrest their panic for a moment, and then like sheep they were ready to go off in the opposite direction.”