"All right, all right," said Julian, hastily. "I dare say you couldn't have helped it; but how on earth did you find out if you've never talked to Miss Waring, what had happened?"
"I investigated the matter," said Mr. Travers, "with the younger Miss Waring. She confessed to me, under some slight pressure on my part, her very mistaken conclusions, and the action she had based upon them. I sent her at once, without mentioning what course of action I had decided to take myself, to her sister."
"You shouldn't have done that," said Julian, with the singular injustice Mr. Travers had previously noted and disliked in members of the upper classes. "There wasn't any need to give Eurydice away to her; I could have managed without that."
"You forget," said Mr. Travers, steadily, "the younger Miss Waring had forfeited her sister's confidence; it would have been impossible to avoid clearing up the situation by bringing all the facts to light. It will not, I feel sure, cause permanent ill feeling between the two sisters."
Julian gave a long, curious sigh. His relief was so intense that he could hardly believe in it; but he could believe, not without reluctance, in the hand that had set him free. It had taken a town clerk to show him where he stood.
"It would be difficult," he began—"By Jove! it's impossible to express thanks for this kind of thing! You won't expect it, perhaps, and I know of course, you didn't do it for me. For all that, I'm not ungrateful. I—well—I think you're more of a man than I am, Travers."
"Not at all, Sir Julian," said Mr. Travers, who privately felt surprised that there should be any doubt upon the matter. "Any one would have done precisely the same who had the good fortune to know the elder Miss Waring."
"Perhaps they would," said Julian, smiling, "or, you might add, the misfortune to come across the erratic proceedings of the younger one."
Mr. Travers looked graver still.
"There I cannot agree with you," he said quietly. "Perhaps I should have mentioned the matter before, but it scarcely seemed germane to the occasion; I am about to marry Miss Eurydice."