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 love-sick 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!”