ex-guardsman, and he at once suspected that Legard was about to repair to Paris as his rival. He sighed, and looked round the spacious apartment, and gazed on the wide prospects of grove and turf that extended from the window, and said to himself, "Is another to snatch these from my grasp?" His impatience to visit Mrs. Leslie, to gain ascendency over Lady Vargrave, to repair to Paris, to scheme, to manoeuvre, to triumph, accelerated the progress of the disease that was now burning in his veins; and the hand that he held out to Mr. Hobbs, as he stepped into his carriage, almost scorched the cold, plump, moist fingers of the surveyor. Before six o'clock in the evening Lord Vargrave confessed reluctantly to himself that he was too ill to proceed much farther. "Howard," said he then, breaking a silence that had lasted some hours, "don't be alarmed; I feel that I am about to have a severe attack; I shall stop at M----- (naming a large town they were approaching); I shall send for the best physician the place affords; if I am delirious to-morrow, or unable to give my own orders, have the kindness to send express for Dr. Holland,--but don't leave me yourself, my good fellow. At my age, it is a hard thing to have no one in the world to care for me in illness; d-----n affection when I am well!" After this strange burst, which very much frightened Mr. Howard, Lumley relapsed into silence, not broken till he reached M-----. The best physician was sent for; and the next morning, as he had half foreseen and foretold, Lord Vargrave _was_ delirious! CHAPTER VI. NOUGHT under Heaven so strongly doth allure The sense of man, and all his mind possess, As Beauty's love-bait.--SPENSER.