He heard Lord Randolph had called; and here it was that his heart turned towards that man. He remembered the kindly, though unadvisedly done, act at Uplands; this man's kindness of manner; his respectfulness towards her. Now the veil of darkness had fallen, he saw all aright; and a love--a love almost of womanly weakness--arose in his heart towards him. He was the first person whom he received; and when the other started at his pale cheek, he simply answered, he had been ill; a sudden obligation to visit the country, where illness had seized upon him. He started, however, when Lord Randolph begged his congratulations on his approaching marriage with Lady Dora, who had accepted him the previous day. However, his start was not perceptible to his friend, and he spoke all the speeches of usage as warmly as such are generally spoken; and, taking his arm, they proceeded together to the Hotel Mirabeau. Lady Dora and her mother sat alone when they entered. The former, despite her general self-possession, coloured painfully, and then became of marble whiteness, while the pale, curling lip alone spoke her internal battle to seem calm. "I bring you an invalid friend," said Lord Randolph; "Tremenhere has been very ill." She looked fixedly at him; his eyes were hollow, his cheeks white; but even these were not sufficient excuse, to that despotic heart. "He should have kept his appointment," she mentally said, "any way." "Have you been at home?" asked Lady Ripley; "for Lord Randolph told us you were not there when he called." A sudden thought seized Tremenhere; he would make this illness subservient to his plans. "I was forced to leave Paris--circumstances obliged me," he said, and for an instant his eye lighted on Lady Dora; "and something of a slow, nervous fever has overwhelmed me ever since." "Egad, yes!" cried Lord Randolph; "I found him seated listlessly at his easel, attempting to paint; and when I entered _sans ceremonie_, the fellow mistook me for a rival artist, and hastily threw a covering over some _chef d'oeuvre_ he was completing." A faint colour crossed Miles's pale cheek, and unthinkingly his eye fell on Lady Dora, and theirs met in an instant; he read her thoughts, and saw where it might be made available to his purpose.