"Lord Frank," said Lady Ursula, after a pause, "I have already alluded to the circumstance which has induced me to treat you with a forbearance which I could not have extended to one whom I regarded as responsible for conduct unwarrantable towards myself, and certainly not to be justified by any possible advantage which I might be supposed to derive from it. I consented to see you now, because I feel sure that when you know from my own lips that I wish you at once to deny the rumour you have been the means of originating, I may depend upon your doing so." "May I ask," I said, with much contrition in my tone, "what explanation you gave Lady Broadhem on the subject?" "If you mean," said Lady Ursula, "whether I accounted to mamma for your conduct as I do to myself--in other words, whether I betrayed your secret--I have carefully refrained from discussing the subject with her. Fortunately, after dinner at the Whitechapels' last night, Broadhem told me that he had seen you, and that you were coming here to-day, so I assured mamma that she would hear from you the true state of the case; though, of course, I felt myself bound to let her understand that, owing to a fact which I was unable to explain, she had been completely misled by you." "And what did Lady Broadhem say?" I asked. "She said that had it not been for a meeting she was obliged to attend this morning, she would have waited to see you to-day; but that she was sure I laboured under some strange delusion, and that a few words of explanation from you would smooth everything."