At the state convention, all the attention was focused

"It is that which makes it so very peculiar," said Sir Harry, looking at Ayala. He had learned something of the Tringle family, and was aware of Ayala's connection with them.

"Who is it, Harry?" demanded her ladyship.

"Sir Thomas Tringle's younger daughter."

"Gertrude!" exclaimed Ayala, who also knew of the engagement with Mr Houston.

"But the worst of it is", continued Sir Harry, "that he is not at all happy. The young lady has come back, while nobody knows what has become of Benjamin."

"Benjamin never will get a wife," said Lady Albury. Thus all the details of the little event became known at Stalham -- except the immediate condition and whereabouts of the lover.

Of the Captain's condition and whereabouts something must be told. When the great disruption came, and he had been abused and ridiculed by Sir Thomas at Ostend, he felt that he could neither remain there where the very waiters knew what had happened, nor could he return to Dover in the same vessel with Sir Thomas and his daughter. He therefore took the first train and went to Brussels.

But Brussels did not offer him many allurements in his present frame of mind. He found nobody there whom he particularly knew, and nothing particular to do. Solitude in a continental town with no amusements beyond those offered by the table d'hote and the theatre is oppressing. His time he endeavoured to occupy with thinking of the last promise he had made to Gertrude. Should he break it or should he keep it? Sir Thomas Tringle was, no doubt, a very rich man -- and then there was the fact which would become known to all the world, that he had run off with a young lady. Should he ultimately succeed in marrying the young lady the enterprise would bear less of an appearance of failure than it would do otherwise. But then, should the money not be forthcoming, the consolation coming from the possession of Gertrude herself would hardly suffice to make him a happy man. Sir Thomas, when he came to consider the matter, would certainly feel that his daughter had compromised herself by the journey, and that it would be good for her to be married to the man who had taken her. It might be that Sir Thomas would yield, and consent to make, at any rate, some compromise. A rumour had reached his ears that Traffick had received L#200,000 with the elder daughter. He would consent to take half that sum. After a week spent amidst the charms of Brussels he returned to London, without any public declaration of his doing so -- "sneaked back", as a friend of his said of him at the club -- and then went to work to carry out his purpose as best he might. All that was known of it at Stalham was that he had returned to his lodgings in London.