Mrs. Lewin brought roses and lilies in her queer little china pots and powder boxes, pencils and brushes, perfumes and washes without number. It cost as much to keep a complexion as to keep a horse. And Mrs. Lewin was infinitely useful at this juncture, since she called every day at St. James’s Street, to carry a lace cravat, or a ribbon, or a flask of essence to the invalid languishing in lodgings there, and visited by all the town, except Fareham and his wife. De Malfort had lain for a fortnight at Lady Castlemaine’s house, alternately petted and neglected by his fair hostess, as the fit took her, since she showed herself ever of the chameleon breed, and hovered betwixt angel and devil. His surgeon told him in confidence that when once his wound was healed enough to allow his removal, the sooner he quitted that feverish company the better it would be for his chance of a speedy convalescence. So, at the end of the second week, he was moved in a covered litter to his own lodgings, where his faithful valet, who had followed his fortunes since he came to man’s estate, was quite capable of nursing him. The town soon discovered the breach between Lord Fareham and his friend—a breach commented upon with many shoulder-shrugs, and not a few coarse innuendoes. Lady Lucretia Topham insisted upon making her way to the sick man’s room, in the teeth of messages delivered by his valet, which, even to a less intelligent mind than Lady Lucretia’s, might have conveyed the fact that she was not wanted. She flung herself on her knees by De Malfort’s bed, and wept and raved at the brutality which had deprived the world of his charming company—and herself of the only man she had ever loved. De Malfort, fevered and vexed at her intrusion, and at this renewal of fires long burnt out, had yet discretion enough to threaten her with his dire displeasure if she betrayed the secret of his illness. “I have sworn Dangerfield and Masaroon to silence,” he said. “Except servants, who have been paid to keep mute, you are the only other witness of our quarrel; and if the story becomes town talk, I shall know whose busy tongue set it going—and then—well, there are things I might tell that your ladyship would hardly like the world to know.” “Traitor! If your purse has accommodated me once in a way when luck has been adverse——” “Oh, madam, you cannot think me base enough to blab of a money transaction with a lady. There are secrets more tender—more romantic.”