‘Come, that’s better,’ said Mr Portland. ‘I haven’t seen a smile like that on your ladyship’s face for many a day. What I want is, a little more affectionate interest from you, Nora, a little more cordiality to your husband’s best friend, a little more familiarity with him before other people, that they may see he is _enfant gaté du maison_! I am sure you understand me. Also, that you can comply with my wishes if you chose. Be more like what you were in Malta, and I shall feel my reward is equal to my sacrifice.’ ‘And the sacrifice, Jack?’ she continued, ‘that is to be delivering up the letters you hold of mine.’ ‘Certainly, if you care to have them. Now, Nora, I will make a bargain with you,--you shall have your letters as soon as ever you consent to fetch them with your own fair hands.’ ‘To _fetch_ them?’ she echoed wonderingly. ‘To fetch them. Did I not speak plainly? They are over at Panty-cuckoo Farm with my other things. If you will come to my room this evening, I will engage to deliver your letters to you myself.’ He thought she would have repudiated the proposal as a fresh insult, but, to his surprise, she answered firmly,-- ‘I _will_ come, if these are your only conditions, Jack, I agree to them. It is a _risqué_ thing to do, but I will do it. I trust to your honour too implicitly to be afraid of your permitting any scandal to accrue from the act. And if you fulfil your promise, Ilfracombe shall stay on at Usk Hall as long as you do. Is the bargain sealed?’ ‘It is,’ replied Mr Portland, with the utmost surprise. He had not entertained the faintest idea that Nora would agree to visit him at Panty-cuckoo Farm. Was it possible she still retained an inkling of affection for him, and had her constrained manner since her marriage been a blind for her real feelings? Men are so conceited where the _beau sexe_ is concerned, that Jack Portland, bloated and disfigured as he was by excess and dissipation, was yet quite ready to believe that the Countess of Ilfracombe had been unable to resist the feelings raised in her breast by meeting him again. He had made the proposal that she should fetch her letters herself, because he thought she would guess from that, that he had no intention of giving them up to her; but when she consented to do so, he determined to make her secret visit to him one more terror by which to force her to influence her husband as he should direct. Now, he hardly knew what he should do. She was coming, that was the extraordinary part of it. Without any pressing or entreaty, the Countess of Ilfracombe was actually coming over to his room at night, to secure her packet of letters. Well, it was the very ‘rummiest go’ he had ever heard of in his life before. ‘You must be very careful that you are not seen to leave the Hall,’ he said to her.