‘Sterndale!’ he ejaculated in a faint voice, ‘I cannot speak with you about this now, some other time, perhaps, but for the present I must be alone. Go to the countess, there’s a good fellow, and keep her from following me. Say I have had a sudden summons to the stables, that there is something wrong with one of the horses, and leave me to tell my own story when I return. I won’t be long. Only give me a few minutes in which to overcome this fearful shock. You know I was fond of her, Sterndale, and I must feel her death a little. I never dreamt it would come to this--that death would part us--never, never.’ And with his pocket handkerchief to his eyes, the earl rushed up to his own room. Meanwhile Mr Portland had been saying to the countess,-- ‘By George, Nora, I do think you are the very cleverest woman I know. I always did think so, you know, and now I’m sure of it. No one to see you this afternoon would have imagined we had ever met before.’ ‘Well, naturally, I didn’t intend them to think so. I determined on that as soon as Ilfracombe told me you were a friend of his. What is the good of telling everybody everything? It only leads to quarrels. So as I am quite sure Ilfracombe has not told _me_ everything that he has done before marriage, I determined he should have a _quid pro quo_. But, Jack, you must keep the secret now for both our sakes. You will let me have back my letters, won’t you?’ ‘Of course I will, that is if you are so hard-hearted as to take my only comfort from me. But where is the good of it? You don’t want to read them over yourself, surely?’ ‘Goose! as if I would. They are awful rubbish, from what I can remember. Only it has become dangerous now, you know, and I should never feel easy unless I had destroyed them.’ ‘Won’t my destroying them do as well?’ ‘No, because you men are so careless, and something might happen to you during your steeplechases or hunting, and then they would be found, and the news would be all over the shop. You _will_ give them back to me, Jack, won’t you?’ in a pleading tone. ‘Did I ever refuse you anything, Nora? You shall have the letters, or anything else you set your heart on, only continue to be nice to me as you were in Malta.’ ‘Then give them to me,’ she said in an earnest voice. ‘Why, you don’t imagine I carry them about with me in my waistcoat pocket, do you? I take much more care of them that. They are at my London diggings, safely locked away in my dispatch box.’ ‘Oh, when shall you go back and fetch them?’ exclaimed the countess. ‘That is not very hospitable of you, Nora,’ said Mr Portland, ‘when I have not yet spent a day at Thistlemere! No, no, you mustn’t be quite so impatient as all that. You shall have the precious letters in good time, though why you cannot leave them where they have been for the last two years, beats me altogether.’