That a man of the world so subject to the vicissitudes of fortunes as Montague Dartie should still be living in a house he had inhabited twenty years at least would have been more noticeable if the rent, rates, taxes, and repairs of that house had not been defrayed by his father-in-law.

By that simple if wholesale device James Forsyte had secured a certain stability in the lives of his daughter and his grandchildren.

After all, there is something invaluable about a safe roof over the head of a sportsman so dashing as Dartie.

Until the events of the last few days he had been almost-supernaturally steady all this year.

The fact was he had acquired a half share in a filly of George Forsyte's, who had gone irreparably on the turf, to the horror of Roger, now stilled by the grave.