“Good-day then, confound you.” “The same to you!” But Littlemore left him in possession. He expected to find Mrs. Headway at the foot of the staircase; but he quitted the house without interruption. On the morrow, after luncheon, as he was leaving the vain retreat at Queen Anne’s Gate, the postman handed him a letter. Littlemore opened and read it on the steps, an operation which took but a moment. DEAR MR. LITTLEMORE—It will interest you to know that I’m engaged to be married to Sir Arthur Demesne and that our marriage is to take place as soon as their stupid old Parliament rises. But it’s not to come out for some days, and I’m sure I can trust meanwhile to your complete discretion. Yours very sincerely, NANCY H. _P.S._—He made me a terrible scene for what I did yesterday, but he came back in the evening and we fixed it all right. That’s how the thing comes to be settled. He won’t tell me what passed between you—he requested me never to allude to the subject. I don’t care—I was bound you should speak! Littlemore thrust this epistle into his pocket and marched away with it. He had come out on various errands, but he forgot his business for the time and before he knew it had walked into Hyde Park. He left the carriages and riders to one side and followed the Serpentine into Kensington Gardens, of which he made the complete circuit. He felt annoyed, and more disappointed than he understood—than he would have understood if he had tried. Now that Nancy Beck had succeeded her success was an irritation, and he was almost sorry he hadn’t said to Sir Arthur: “Oh well, she was pretty bad, you know.” However, now they were at one they would perhaps leave him alone. He walked the irritation off and before he went about his original purposes had ceased to think of Mrs. Headway. He went home at six o’clock, and the servant who admitted him informed him in doing so that Mrs. Dolphin had requested he should be told on his return that she wished to see him in the drawing-room. “It’s another trap!” he said to himself instinctively; but in spite of this reflexion he went upstairs. On entering his sister’s presence he found she had a visitor. This visitor, to all appearance on the point of departing, was a tall elderly woman, and the two ladies stood together in the middle of the room.