“DEAR MR. LOWTHER,--Have you seen my husband since the day before yesterday? He _left home_ on Tuesday night, and I have _not seen him since_. I am _terribly_ anxious about him. I have _been to Petersham_, and have _seen the lady_. We were _quite wrong_ about her, and I am _ashamed_ of myself for having been _so foolish_. She is a _near relation_ of Frank’s; and his conduct to her has been _most noble_. Pray find him _immediately_, if possible, and show him this letter. “Yours sincerely, “M.T. “_Thursday night._” A pleasant letter this for Harcourt Lowther to receive the next day, as he lay helpless on the lodging-house sofa, with his head and face sadly dilapidated by the effects of his fall under a shower of broken wine-glasses and cruets. He groaned aloud as he read Maude’s missive. “Is there any possibility of comprehending a woman’s tactics?” he muttered. “She writes as if this boor were an idolized husband. Is it all hypocrisy--or what? So the bubble of jealousy has burst, and the young person at the Petersham cottage _is_ a cousin, after all; and Francis has kicked up his heels; and I lie here as miserably bruised and battered as if I had just been beaten in a fight for the championship, at the very time when I most want to be up and astir.” Yes, Mr. Lowther was a prisoner. He had been seriously shaken by the scuffle with Francis, and had been in the doctor’s hands since the unpleasant termination of his supper-party. But this was not the worst. It was the disfigurement of his handsome face which Harcourt took most deeply to heart. A black eye or a scarred forehead will keep a man as close a captive as a warrant of committal to the Tower. At the very moment when the sudden entanglement of his web threatened to render all past efforts useless, when the schemer had most need of his dexterity, Harcourt Lowther found himself an unpresentable object, and knew that he must spend dreary weeks of seclusion before he dared emerge into the world once more, and take up the disordered threads which he still hoped to weave into a harmonious network. Imagine Paris, with all his plans laid for the abduction of Helen, brought suddenly to a standstill by a score of vulgar cuts and bruises, the sight of any one of which might have restored the lady to a sense of her duty. Harcourt Lowther, with his face bandaged, felt himself a contemptible creature, a modern Samson without the glorious remnant of a Samson’s strength. For the first time in his life the fine gentleman discovered how much he depended on his handsome face, and what a lost wretch he would be without it.