Weeks passed on; the wound in Lewis’s shoulder healed, despite the aggravating attendance of Doctors Scalpel and Bistoury, and with youth and health on his side he speedily regained his accustomed vigour. General Grant’s recovery was a matter of greater difficulty. The fracture had been by no means easily reduced, and the process by which the bones re-united was a long and tedious one. His accident (as is usually the case with such events) had occurred at a most inconvenient moment. While he was yet confined to his room the election for the county came on, and his opponent, taking advantage of his absence to undermine his influence with the voters, was returned by a large majority. The bribery by which he had obtained his seat was, however, a matter of such notoriety, that, by De Grandeville’s advice, the General was induced to petition Parliament to annul the election. The petition failed, and the expenses, which, from the prolonged proceedings, were unusually heavy, all fell upon the unsuccessful candidate. During the progress of the affair, Lewis, by the General’s wish, acted as his amanuensis and private secretary, a confidential servant being engaged to wait on Walter and attend him during his rides, thus relieving his tutor of much that was irksome in his situation. The London season was at its height before General Grant had recovered sufficiently to leave Broadhurst, but a fortnight before the day on which Charles Leicester’s wedding was fixed to take place Annie and her father started for the great metropolis. During his attendance on the General, Lewis had been thrown much into Annie’s society, and their intimacy had deepened, on the lady’s side, into feelings of the warmest esteem and friendship, while the gentleman became more and more convinced that his previous estimate of the fair sex was a completely mistaken one, and altogether to be condemned as the weakest and most fallacious theory that ever entered the brain of a hot-headed boy--by which opprobrious epithet he mentally stigmatised his six-months-ago self--and for at least a week after she had departed he felt as if something had gone wrong with the sun, so that it never shone properly.