Lady Muriel and her father gave me a delightfully warm welcome. They were not of the folk we meet in fashionable drawing-rooms who conceal all such feelings as they may chance to possess beneath the impenetrable mask of a conventional placidity. 'The Man with the Iron Mask' was, no doubt, a rarity and a marvel in his own age: in modern London no one would turn his head to give him a second look! No, these were real people. When they looked pleased, it meant that they were pleased: and when Lady Muriel said, with a bright smile, “I'm very glad to see you again!”, I knew that it was true. Still I did not venture to disobey the injunctions--crazy as I felt them to be--of the lovesick young Doctor, by so much as alluding to his existence: and it was only after they had given me full details of a projected picnic, to which they invited me, that Lady Muriel exclaimed, almost as an after-thought, “and do, if you can, bring Doctor Forester with you! I'm sure a day in the country would do him good. I'm afraid he studies too much--” It was 'on the tip of my tongue' to quote the words “His only books are woman's looks!” but I checked myself just in time--with something of the feeling of one who has crossed a street, and has been all but run over by a passing 'Hansom.' “--and I think he has too lonely a life,” she went on, with a gentle earnestness that left no room whatever to suspect a double meaning. “Do get him to come! And don't forget the day, Tuesday week. We can drive you over. It would be a pity to go by rail----there is so much pretty scenery on the road. And our open carriage just holds four.” “Oh, I'll persuade him to come!” I said with confidence--thinking “it would take all my powers of persuasion to keep him away!” The picnic was to take place in ten days: and though Arthur readily accepted the invitation I brought him, nothing that I could say would induce him to call--either with me or without me on the Earl and his daughter in the meanwhile. No: he feared to “wear out his welcome,” he said: they had “seen enough of him for one while”: and, when at last the day for the expedition arrived, he was so childishly nervous and uneasy that I thought it best so to arrange our plans that we should go separately to the house--my intention being to arrive some time after him, so as to give him time to get over a meeting. With this object I purposely made a considerable circuit on my way to the Hall (as we called the Earl's house): “and if I could only manage to lose my way a bit,” I thought to myself, “that would suit me capitally!”