“Do you not see how miserable she is, Dr. Paull? We must do something for her,” said Lady Forwood, energetically. “You can, even more than I. She wants friends. She wants some powerful mind to control hers, and lead her to live her own life, without reference to the prince. That wretched young man! He neglects her shamefully; and how he can throw her with that count as he does—everyone is talking about it!” “My dear Lady Forwood, what can _I_ do?” asked Hugh, helplessly. Had she spoken to him thus before he had met Mercedes, he would have thought she was taking leave of her senses. Oddly enough, now, her appeal did not strike him as in any way peculiar. “I could see her professionally, and give her a few hints; but I could not talk to her openly, as you could,” he added, hesitatingly. “What I want is for her to take an interest in something, Dr. Paull. I don’t mean an ordinary interest—but something that will occupy her energies, will distract her from brooding over her wrongs. Oh, she is wronged, poor child! David thinks very badly of the prince. I would not believe anything so dreadful of a fellow-creature. Oh, dear me, here _is_ David!” A portly, pleasant-looking man, who seemed as if the world suited him, and he it, came in with a “Hulloa! You don’t look best pleased to see me, my dear! I don’t wonder. It isn’t often she gets you all to herself, is it, Paull? Well, we’ve won. Majority of seventeen for our motion.” Sir David talked away about the debate just over; and as soon as he could take leave, Hugh quitted the theatre. Walking through the streets, under the dark night sky, he seemed awakening from some vivid dream, in which he had behaved in a manner in which he would certainly not have behaved when awake. Letting himself in with his key, he rang for Jones. “You can go to bed. I shall sit up to do some work,” he said. “You will find the letters in the library, sir,” said Jones, with extra gravity. “Very well,” said Hugh. Then he flung himself into a chair, and began to think. “That girl and I have met before,” he mused. “But how?—when? When I looked into her eyes, I felt she understood me ... and—I understand her. What on earth induced Lady Forwood to ask me to look after her?” He almost laughed. Here, in the big, lonely house, which for years had been as a hermitage to him, the idea of his being asked to become mentor to a lovely Spanish princess seemed an absurdity. “Let me see what Grantley has to say about Spain and the Spaniards,” he said to himself, going to the book-shelves and taking down a volume.