He remembered as he went along that he had often heard Lady Gwendolyn speak, half jestingly, of her “mansion” at Turoy, and declare it to be such a “ghostly place that only a person with a very clear conscience could venture to stay there even for a night.” She and Lord Teignmouth had often spent their holidays there when children; but then their mother was alive, and the place had been made bright for their occupation. The last four years it had been seldom inhabited, although it was one of Lady Gwendolyn’s caprices to have it kept in perfect order and repair, that it might be available, supposing she cared to run down there at any time. An old nurse of hers, with her husband, lived in the house--that Colonel Dacre also remembered to have heard; and had been pleased at Lady Gwendolyn’s thoughtful provision for one who had been good to her when she was a child. But from the description given him of Turoy it was the last place for a spoiled beauty to take refuge in, unless she had some reason at the moment to feel disgusted with the world and her friends, and needed a spell of solitude to get her into a better mood. “If I could believe that she had run away to Turoy on my account I should be the happiest man alive,” Colonel Dacre said to himself, with a wild thrill, for it seemed to him that this would be sure proof that he was not indifferent to her. “Otherwise, what could there be in my secret to pain and annoy her?” And then he set himself to work out the problem how she could have found anything in his mother’s boudoir to enlighten her on this point. He had not solved it to his satisfaction when the train whistled its way into London, and he was obliged to attend to the more practical details of his journey. He found, on consulting the time-table, that there was no train which stopped at Westhampton until the morning express, and, therefore, he decided to go to a hotel, and get a few hours’ rest. He was not naturally vain, but it did strike him that he should gain in the end by this delay, as a battered-looking, travel-stained, wobegone man would not make his appearance on the Turoy scene with much effect. And he could not afford to dispense with a single advantage in the contest before him, for he knew the adversary he had to deal with, and that if once he gave Lady Gwendolyn the chance of making a jest at his expense he was undone. She was one of those women who would forgive a lover for having committed a crime, but would never pardon him if he made himself ridiculous. So that Colonel Dacre gave himself seven good hours’ sleep, and started the next morning in excellent health and spirits. The journey was a long one, but with hope for a companion time passes so quickly, and whenever he was beginning to grow weary he refreshed himself by picturing Lady Gwendolyn’s blush and smile, her well-feigned surprise, her delicious embarrassment, her mutinous grace, as she welcomed him to her “mansion.”