After luncheon, Elysium. He walked with the two girls, and Fanny lagged behind; and Zoe proved herself no coquette. A coquette would have been a little cross and shown him she had made a sacrifice. Not so Zoe Vizard. She never told him, nor even Fanny, she had refused Lord Uxmoor. She esteemed the great sacrifice she had made for him as a little one, and so loved him a little more that he had cost her an earl's coronet and a large fortune. The party resumed their habits that Uxmoor had interrupted, and no warning voice was raised. The boring commenced at Hillstoke, and Doctress Gale hovered over the work. The various strata and their fossil deposits were an endless study, and kept her microscope employed. With this, and her treatise on “Cure by Esculents” she was so employed that she did not visit the Court for some days: then came an invitation from Lord Uxmoor to stay a week with him, and inspect his village. She accepted it, and drove herself in the bailiff's gig, all alone. She found her host attending to his duties, but dejected; so then she suspected, and turned the conversation to Zoe Vizard, and soon satisfied herself he had no hopes in that quarter. Yet he spoke of her with undisguised and tender admiration. Then she said to herself, “This is a man, and he shall have her.” She sat down and wrote a letter to Vizard, telling him all she knew, and what she thought, viz., that another woman, and a respectable one, had a claim on Mr. Severne, which ought to be closely inquired into, and _the lady's version heard._ “Think of it,” said she. “He disowned the woman who had saved his life, he was so afraid I should tell Miss Vizard under what circumstances I first saw him.” She folded and addressed the letter. But having relieved her mind in some degree by this, she asked herself whether it would not be kinder to all parties to try and save Zoe without an exposure. Probably Severne benefited by his grace and his disarming qualities; for her ultimate resolution was to give him a chance, offer him an alternative: he must either quietly retire, or be openly exposed. So then she put the letter in her desk, made out her visit, of which no further particulars can be given at present, returned home, and walked down to the Court next morning to have it out with Edward Severne. But, unfortunately, from the very day she offered him terms up at Hillstoke, the tide began to run in Severne's favor with great rapidity. A letter came from the detective. Severne received it at breakfast, and laid it before Zoe, which had a favorable effect on her mind to begin.