Sir Charles begged her not to cry; but still he did not kiss her, nor conceal his mortification: he hardly spoke to her for several days. She accepted her disgrace pensively and patiently. She thought it all over, and felt her husband was right, and loved her like a man. But she thought, also, that she was not very wrong to love him in her way. Wrong or not, she felt she could not sit idle and see his enemy defeat him. The coolness died away by degrees, with so much humility on one side and so much love on both: but the subject was interdicted forever. A week after the trial Lady Bassett wrote to Mrs. Marsh, under cover to Mr. Oldfield, and told her how the trial had gone, and, with many expressions of gratitude, invited her and her husband to Huntercombe Hall. She told Sir Charles what she had done, and he wore a very strange look. “Might I suggest that we have them alone?” said he dryly. “By all means,” said Lady Bassett. “I don't want to share my paragon with anybody.” In due course a reply came; Mr. and Mrs. Marsh would avail themselves some day of Lady Bassett's kindness: at present they were going abroad. The letter was written by a man's hand. About this time Oldfield sent Sir Charles Miss Somerset's deed, canceled, and told him she had married a man of fortune, who was devoted to her, and preferred to take her without any dowry. Bassett and Wheeler went home, crestfallen, and dined together. They discussed the two trials, and each blamed the other. They quarreled and parted: and Wheeler sent in an enormous bill, extending over five years. Eighty-five items began thus: “Attending you at your house for several hours, on which occasion you asked my advice as to whether--” etc. Now as a great many of these attendances had been really to shoot game and dine on rabbits at Bassett's expense, he thought it hard the conversation should be charged and the rabbits not. Disgusted with his defeat, and resolved to evade this bill, he discharged his servant, and put a retired soldier into his house, armed him with a blunderbuss, and ordered him to keep all doors closed, and present the weapon aforesaid at all rate collectors, tax collectors, debt collectors, and applicants for money to build churches or convert the heathen; but not to _fire_ at anybody except his friend Wheeler, nor at him unless he should try to shove a writ in at some chink of the building. This done, he went on his travels, third-class, with his eyes always open, and his heart full of bitterness. Nothing happened to Richard Bassett on his travels that I need relate until one evening when he alighted at a small commercial inn in the city of York, and there met a person whose influence on the events I am about to relate seems at this moment incredible to me, though it is simple fact. He found the commercial room empty, and rang the bell. In came the waiter, a strapping girl, with coal-black eyes and brows to match, and a brown skin, but glowing cheeks.