At this moment I glanced significantly at Broadhem, who left the room. "Unfortunately it too often happens, Lady Ursula," I said, "that it is necessary to inflict a temporary pain to avert what might become a permanent misery." "I cannot conceive," replied she, "to what permanent misery, as affecting myself, you can allude, in which your intervention should be necessary, more especially when exhibited in a form which places me in such a false position. I need not say that the announcement which I saw for the first time in a newspaper caused me the greatest annoyance; but when I found afterwards that my mother, my brother, and even Lord Grandon, had heard it from your own lips many weeks before, and that in fact you had given my mother, under a promise that she would not allude to the subject to me, such a totally erroneous idea of what passed at our interview at Dickiefield,--when I thought of all this, I could only account for it by the last revelation you made to me there." She maintained her self-possession perfectly until she was obliged to allude to my insanity, then she dropped her eyelids, and the colour for the first time rushed into her cheeks as she shrank from touching on this delicate subject. At the moment I almost felt inclined to tell her that I was as sane as she was, but refrained, partly because I was not sure of it myself, partly because I did not think she would believe me, partly because, after all, it might be the best justification I could offer for my conduct, and partly because I was not quite ready to enter upon an explanation of the ruse by which I had hoped to save her from the persecution of her mother to marry Chundango. This suddenly reminded me of my idea that she was in the position of one drowning. I therefore said, in a careless way, for the purpose of showing her that her allusion to my insanity had produced no unfavourable impression upon me,---- "Lady Ursula, would you have any objection to regarding me in the light of a straw?" "A what!" said Lady Ursula, in a tone in which amazement seemed blended with alarm. "A straw," I repeated; "I assure you you are drowning, and even an unworthy being like myself may be of use to you, if you would but believe it. Remember Chundango's conduct at Dickiefield--remember the view Lady Broadhem took of it, until I interposed, or as I should more accurately say, until the current swept me past her--remember that up to this moment she has never recurred to the subject of Mr Chundango, who, although he comes to the house constantly, now devotes himself entirely to Lady Broadhem herself; and, allow me to say it, you owe it all to a timely straw."