“Indeed, my Lady Kilcroney, the idea is sprung entirely from your own imagination. Lord Harborough’s illness is a fit. He had scarce interchanged a few words with a friend in the club-room when he groaned and fell forward. Sir Richard Jebb and Dr. Jenner were at once summoned. They could not get the blood to flow. He was still breathing, that was all.” “Well, ’tis another old sinner gone to his account,” said Nan Day philosophically. “And Sarah W. is a Marchioness--who’d have thought it? Where is Susan? I’m not sure, Miss Pounce, that I really care for a capote. Could you not let me see some of those French hats you spoke of anon?” “Ah, Nan, you have indeed sadly lost touch with the world, child! ’Twas a magnificent fine gentleman, a noble patron of literature and art----” “Ay, and of the stage, by your own showing, Kitty.” Nan Day spoke smartly. “Pray, Miss Pounce, did you not hear me?” Pamela felt sick and faint. She was glad enough of the excuse to crawl away and take a dose of the hartshorn which was kept handy in the workroom in hot weather. When she returned to the showroom to announce that the case was at that moment being opened--her head girl was wrapping all last week’s inspirations carefully in tissue for the occasion--she found the company increased by My Lady Verney and Mrs. Lafone, and that well-known personage, Beau Stafford. He was speaking as she entered, and the first words that caught her ear were these: “I call her Fair Fatality.” Mistress Molly Lafone’s shrill accents were then uplifted. “Why, Mr. Stafford,” though she was sister-in-law to the Beau there was small love lost between them, “granting the suicide--to be sure, the poor young man must have been mad--you cannot hold Miss Falcon responsible for Lord Harborough’s seizure.” “You know a good deal, Mistress Molly, but you don’t know everything. Young Lord Ashmore attacked the Marquis in the street last night. There was a terrible scene between them. Ay, ladies, all on account of that wild bird, the Falcon. Lord Harborough had to call to his footmen--fact, I assure you! Only for the scandal he would have handed his assailant to the watch. ’Twas the shock of hearing of the rash youth’s dreadful end, this morning, that has been the death of him. Ay, My Lord Harborough is dead. They were pulling down the blinds of Harborough House as I passed along the Mall.” “Fair Fatality, indeed!” cried Kitty. “And her so young and handsome, and not a six months famous yet.” “Oh, she’s a cunning piece!” interposed Molly. “I have heard tales of her ways. They say none knows where she lives, nor where she comes from, nor her real name. She wraps herself in the utmost mystery. Probably,” went on the little lady, with her acid titter, “’tis some grocer’s daughter! But poor simplicity has no chance, especially with the gentlemen. You must play the romantick.” My Lady Kilcroney, her fingers to her lips, seemed lost in reflection. “Was there not a story of a duel, Mr. Stafford?”