So, accordingly, the next morning after breakfast Colonel Alsager sent to Mrs. Hammond a polite little note, in which he presented his compliments, and requested the pleasure of a few minutes' conversation; and to which a verbal answer was returned to the effect that Mrs. Hammond would be delighted to see Colonel Alsager, if he could come up at once. He followed the lady's-maid, and found Mrs. Hammond in the boudoir, dressed in her habit and hat. She received him with great cordiality. "I am so sorry to have sent what may have seemed a peremptory message, Colonel Alsager," she said; "but the fact is, Sir Charles has been round here just now, and we have arranged a little riding-party,--he and I, and Emily Tyrrell, and Captain Bligh, and Mr. Somers, and one or two more; and I promised to be ready by eleven." "Make no excuses, pray," said Laurence, in a hard dry tone. "I won't detain you, as your time's valuable, by any preamble. I will simply ask, are you determined to persist in your present course?" "In what course, my dear Colonel Alsager?" "In bringing destruction on a household, Laura Hammond! In blighting the happiness of a young wife, and spreading snares for a foolish husband! In rendering yourself conspicuous, and your host contemptible! Do I speak plainly enough?" "Scarcely," said she with a little smile; "for though you insult me, and give way to your own rage, you do not condescend to--or you dare not--explain your motives. Don't think that I am weak enough to imagine that you are jealous of me, Laurence. I know you too well for that. I know that whatever command I may have had over you is past and gone. But perhaps the passion, the _caprice_ that I had for you--call it what you will--continues. Suppose it does? Suppose the sight of you, the meeting with you after so long a separation, has renewed the dormant flame? You scorn me, and I see you prostrate at the feet of a sweetly pretty piece of propriety and innocence--don't interrupt me, please--who then becomes my rival? Revenge is sweet, especially to women, you know. This child of the fields makes herself my rival,--I make myself hers! I show to you and others, that if you care for me no longer, there are others who will. I show to her and others, that if she is preferred to me by one I--yes, I love,--I am preferred to her by one she loves. As yet I have never run second for anything for which I've entered, Colonel Alsager, and I don't intend to do so now." "You are arguing on utterly false premises,--you are talking worse than nonsense. Between me and the lady to whom you allude there is nothing. You need not smile in that way. I swear it! She is as pure as--" "Oh, pray spare me! Don't fall into raptures about her purity,--there's a good creature. Dear me, dear me! this must be a very bad case, when a man like Colonel Alsager takes a poetical view of his lady-love, and talks about her purity."