"He was expressly told that he would meet Ayala here." "He seems to be making himself very comfortable, and hasn't said a word to me about Ayala. I am sick of Ayala. Poor Tom is going to be really ill." Then Sir Thomas frowned, and said nothing more on that occasion. Tom was certainly in an uncomfortable position, and never left his bed till after noon. Then he would mope about the place, moping even worse than he did before, and would spend the evening all alone in the housekeeper's room, with a pipe in his mouth, which he seemed hardly able to take the trouble to keep alight. There were three or four other guests in the house, including two Honourable Miss Trafficks, and a couple of young men out of the City, whom Lady Tringle hoped might act as antidotes to Houston and Hamel. But with none of them would Tom associate. With Captain Batsby he did form some little intimacy; driven to it, no doubt, by a community of interest. "I believe you were acquainted with my cousin, Miss Dormer, at Stalham?" asked Tom. At the moment the two were sitting over the fire in the housekeeper's room, and Captain Batsby was smoking a cigar, while Tom was sucking an empty pipe. "Oh, yes," said Captain Batsby, pricking up his ears, "I saw a good deal of her." "A wonderful creature!" ejaculated Tom. "Yes, indeed!" "For a real romantic style of beauty, I don't suppose that the world ever saw her like before. Did you?" "Are you one among your cousin's admirers?" demanded the Captain. "Am I?" asked Tom, surprised that there should be anybody who had not as yet heard his tragic story. "Am I one of her admirers? Why,--rather! Haven't you heard about me and Stubbs?" "No, indeed." "I thought that everybody had heard that. I challenged him, you know." "To fight a duel?" "Yes; to fight a duel. I sent my friend Faddle down with a letter to Stalham, but it was of no use. Why should a man fight a duel when he has got such a girl as Ayala to love him?" "That is quite true, then?" "I fear so! I fear so! Oh, yes; it is too true. Then you know;"--and as he came to this portion of his story he jumped up from his chair and frowned fiercely;--"then, you know, I met him under the portico of the Haymarket, and struck him." "Oh,--was that you?" "Indeed it was." "And he did not do anything to you?"