So much for Captain Maxfield! But much more for Lady Emily Rich, of whose fate I have now to tell. My friend, Mrs. Shrewton Stanhope, was very reserved, would tell me nothing, even when I roundly said that I had fancied to see her in the park one evening. She had the hardihood to meet my eyes with a blank denial, and very plainly there was nothing to be learned from her. A visit, many visits to the London parks at the hour between eleven and midnight taught me no more; but being by now thoroughly interested in the affairs of Lady Emily Rich I made it my business to get a glimpse of her. She was, it seemed, the only unmarried daughter of the large Richborough family which had done so well in that sex, and so badly in the other that there was not only no son, but no male heir to the title. That, indeed, expired with Lady Emily's father. I don't really know how many daughters there were, or were not. Most of them married prosperously. One of them became a Roman princess; one married a Mr. Walker, an American stock-jobber (with a couple of millions of money); another was Baroness de Grass--De Grass being a Jew; one became an Anglican nun to the disgust (I was told) of her family. Lady Emily, whose engagement to the wretched Maxfield was so dramatically terminated was, I think, the youngest of them. I saw her one night toward the end of the season at the Opera. Tendring, who was with me, pointed her out in a box. She was dressed in black and looked very scared. She hardly moved once throughout the evening, and when people spoke to her seemed not to hear. She was certainly a very pretty girl. It may have been fancy, or it may not, but I could have sworn to the corner of a pinky-brown envelope sticking out of the bosom of her dress. I don't think I was mistaken; I had a good look through the glasses. She touched it shortly afterward and poked it down. At the end I saw her come out. A tall girl, rather thin; very pretty certainly, but far from well. Her eyes haunted me; they had what is called a hag-ridden look. And yet, thought I, she had got her desire of Quidnunc. Ah, but had she? Hear the end of the tale.