"'I pray you come at once,'" said Dollamore, three days after his conversation with Mr. Aldermaston, reading to his stick the contents of a dainty little note which he had just received;--"'I pray you come at once.--Yours sincerely, Laura Hammond.' Very much yours sincerely, Laura Hammond, I should think. What the deuce does she want with me? Is she going to drive us three abreast, like the horses in the diligence? and does she think I should like to trot along between Mitford and Tchernigow? Not she! She knows me too well to think anything of that sort. But then what on earth does she want with me? 'I pray you come at once.' Egad, I must go, I suppose, and ask for Madame Poitevin, as she tells me." He lounged up to the Hôtel de Russie, asked for Madame Poitevin, and was shown into a room where Laura was seated with Marcelline reading to her. Dollamore recollected Marcelline at once; he had an eye for beauty in every class, and had taken not an unfavourable notice of the trim little _soubrette_ during his stay at Redmoor. He wondered now what had caused this sudden elevation of her social status, and did not ascribe it to any good source. But he had little time to wonder about Marcelline, for she rose at once, and passing him with a slight bow, left the room as Mrs. Hammond advanced with outstretched hand. She looked splendidly handsome; her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed, her step elastic. Dollamore thought he had scarcely ever seen her to such advantage. "You are surprised at my having sent to you, Lord Dollamore?" said she as soon as they were seated. "No, indeed, Mrs. Hammond; I'm never surprised at anything. A man who has turned forty and suffers himself to be surprised is an idiot." "Turned forty! Well, when you reach that age you shall tell me whether there is truth in that axiom." ("Flattering me!" said Dollamore to his stick; "wants to borrow money.") "But at all events you don't know why I asked you to come." "I have not the remotest idea." "How should you have? Three hours ago I myself had no anticipation of the occurrence of circumstances which have induced me to ask you to share a confidence." "Hallo!" said Dollamore to his stick; "I share a confidence! She ought to have sent for Aldermaston." But he said aloud, "If I can be of any help to you--" "You can be of the very greatest assistance. You may have heard how I have been left by my husband; how Mr. Hammond's relatives, by their cruel and secret machinations, so worked upon him in his enfeebled state as to induce him to make a most shameful will, by which I was robbed of all that ought to have been mine, and left with a beggarly income!" She had not forgotten that will, and any recurrence to it made her cheek flame in earnest. Dollamore bowed. He ought to have expressed some pity or some astonishment; but he had never during his life been guilty of any conventionality.