"Ay, sir, that's the puzzle of it. Lady Cleeve can't give it him. Anyway, he has it, and sits at the Captain's card-table with a heap of gold and silver piled up before him."
Dr. Downes fell into a rather unpleasant reverie. He knew nothing of the money that Lady Cleeve had placed to her son's account in the bank, and he wondered where Philip's means could come from.
"Camberley and Lennox, and those rich fellows, may stake ten-pound notes if they choose to be so idiotic," cogitated the Doctor. "But such recklessness in Philip means ruin. What possesses the lad? Takes after his father, I'm afraid: _he_ rushed into folly in his young days. But he pulled himself up in time."
Mark came back from the Vicarage, bringing no news of the gold snuff-box. The Vicar, much concerned, searched in the hall himself; he spoke of the pinch he had taken from the box, and he saw Dr. Downes return the box to his pocket. Dr. Downes sat looking uneasily into the dying embers of his fire as he revolved the news.
"Is it possible," he presently asked himself, "is it possible that Philip can have _stolen_ the box? Stolen it to make money of for his cards and billiards?"
[CHAPTER III.]
"PATCHWORK."
The Reverend Francis Kettle and his daughter Maria sat down to their breakfast-table somewhat later than usual: the dinner-party of the previous evening had made the servants busy. The thoughts of each were preoccupied: the Vicar's with the strange loss of Dr. Downes' gold snuff-box, of which he spoke from time to time; Maria's with the proposal of marriage made to her by Philip Cleeve: the most momentous proposal a young girl can receive. Presently Mr. Kettle found leisure to take up a letter, which had been lying by his plate unopened.
"Oh," said he, "it is from Mrs. Page."
Maria glanced up with a smile. "In trouble as usual, papa, with her servants?"