"If I say anything disagreeable, it is not for the pleasure of giving you pain, Jekyl Marlowe; but I understand that you mean to have old General Lennox and his artful wife to stay at your house, and if so, I think it an arrangement that had better be dispensed with. I don't think her an eligible acquaintance for Beatrix, and you know very well she's _not_--and it is not a respectable or creditable kind of thing." "Now, what d--d fool, I beg pardon--but who the plague has been filling your mind with those ridiculous stories--my dear little mamma? You know how ready I am to confess; you _might_ at least; I tell you everything; and I do assure you I _never_ admired her. She's good looking, I know; but so are fifty pictures and statues I've seen, that don't please me." "Then it's true, the General and his wife are going on a visit to Marlowe?" insisted Lady Alice, drily. "No, they are not. D---- me, I'm not thinking of the General and his wife, nor of any such d--d trumpery. I'd give something to know who the devil's taking these cursed liberties with my name." "Pray, Jekyl Marlowe, command your language. It can't the least signify who tells me; but you see I do sometimes get a letter." "Yes, and a precious letter too. Such a pack of lies did any human being ever hear fired off in a sentence before? I'm _épris_ of Mrs. General Lennox. Thumper number one! She's a lady of--I beg pardon--easy virtue. Thumper number two! and I invite her and her husband down to Marlowe, to make love of course to her, and to fight the old General. Thumper number three!" And the Baronet chuckled over the three "thumpers" merrily. "Don't talk slang, if you please--gentlemen don't, at least in addressing ladies." "Well, then, I won't; I'll speak just as you like, only you must not blow me up any more; for really there is no cause, and we here only two or three minutes together, you know; and I want to tell you something, or rather to ask you--do you ever hear anything of those _Deverells_, you know?" Lady Alice looked quite startled, and turned quickly half round in her chair, with her eyes on Sir Jekyl's face. The Baronet's smile subsided, and he looked with a dark curiosity in hers. A short but dismal silence followed. "You've heard from them?" "No!" said the lady, with little change in the expression of her face. "Well, _of_ them?" "No," she repeated; "but _why_ do you ask? It's _very_ strange!" "_What's_ strange? Come, now, you _have_ something to say; tell me what it is." "I wonder, Jekyl, you ask for them, in the first place." "Well--well, of course; but what next?" murmured the Baronet, eagerly: "why is it so strange?" "Only because I've been thinking of them--a great deal--for the last few days; and it seemed very odd your asking; and in fact I fancy the same thing has happened to us both." "Well, may be; but what _is_ it?" demanded the Baronet, with a sinister smile.