"My darling child--my own wife!" he said tenderly, raising her to his bosom, "do not give way to nervous depression--you can have no cause--I will not leave you so much alone; but you know, dearest, why it is--not choice, as heaven hears me--but necessity. Where will be our long-projected voyage to Gibraltar, for our good object, if I do not work? Every hour away from you is one of regret; and, as I am painting some grim portrait, I long to carry my model, easel, and all, to my quiet painting-room here, with my Minnie to hang over my shoulder." She was silently weeping most bitter tears; they were standing near the table in the centre of the room. "Come, come," he said, cheeringly, "you shall not give way to this--come into my studio; I want you to mix my colours. Silly child--silly child! to cry so much for nothing." She was on the point of telling him all, and imploring pardon, when he turned his head aside, and the eye caught sight of a sheet of paper on the table. "Since when has Minnie," he said laughingly, as he took it in his hand, "turned copyist, and whose writing is this she has been imitating? I have seen it somewhere before--where have I seen it?" She was almost sinking to earth. It was a note which Lord Randolph had commenced; yet, in her speechless agony, she clung to his arm. There were only a few words--they ran thus:-- "Dear Tremenhere,--I am much annoyed at not finding you at home----" "What does it mean, Minnie?" he cried, still smiling, and yet a strange, uncertain light bursting over him. "Surely this is not your writing? has any one been here? I will ring, and ask Bruce." He had his hand on the bell: she had slid from his arm unperceived to a seat. Before the bell sounded, the servant boy entered the room with a letter, which he handed to Tremenhere. "Has any one called during my----" Tremenhere said no more, his eye fell on the letter--one glance sufficed; for in his other hand he held the slip of paper. "You may go," he said hastily to the boy. Without uttering another word he tore open the letter, and read, (we have said Lord Randolph had not much variety of thought; this note was a copy, in the past tense, of the other one commenced.)