"I did not know. The Countess told me she was not in Keppel Street, but refused to inform me where she was staying. I should not have interfered with her ladyship's plans, had she been less secret with me." "Surely it was unnecessary that she should tell you." "Quite unnecessary;--but hardly unnatural after all that has occurred. As the Countess is with you only a friend of late date, you are probably unaware of the former friendship which existed between us. There was a time in which I certainly did not think that Lady Lovel would ever decline to speak to me about her daughter. But all this is nothing to you, Serjeant Bluestone." "It is something to me, Mr. Thwaite, as her friend. Is there no reason why she should have treated you thus? Ask your own conscience." "My conscience is clear in the matter." "I have sent for you here, Mr. Thwaite, to ask you whether you cannot yourself understand that this which you have proposed to do must make you an enemy to the Countess, and annul and set aside all that kindness which you have shown her? I put it to your own reason. Do you think it possible that the Countess should be otherwise than outraged at the proposition you have made to her?" "I have made no proposition to her ladyship." "Have you made none to her daughter?" "Certainly I have. I have asked her to be my wife." "Come, Mr. Thwaite, do not palter with me." "Palter with you! Who dares to say that I palter? I have never paltered. Paltering is--lying, as I take it. Let the Countess be my enemy. I have not said that she should not be so. She might have answered my letter, I think, when the old man died. In our rank of life we should have done so. It may be different with lords and titled ladies. Let it pass, however. I did not mean to make any complaint. I came here because you sent for me." "Yes;--I did send for you," said the Serjeant, wishing with all his heart that he had never been persuaded to take a step which imposed upon him so great a difficulty. "I did send for you. Lady Anna Lovel has expressed a wish to see you, before she leaves London." "I will wait upon Lady Anna Lovel." "I need hardly tell you that her wish has been opposed by her friends." "No doubt it was." "But she has said with so much earnestness that she cannot consider herself to be absolved from the promise which she made to you when she was a child--" "She was no child when she made it." "It does not signify. She cannot be absolved from the promise which I suppose she did make--" "She certainly made it, Serjeant Bluestone." "Will you allow me to continue my statement? It will not occupy you long. She assures her mother that she cannot consider herself to be absolved from that promise without your sanction. She has been living in my house for some weeks, and I do not myself doubt in the least that were she thus freed an alliance would soon be arranged between her and her cousin." "I have heard of that--alliance."