The little ape started with well-feigned astonishment, indignation, and disgust, as soon as the duke had mentioned the matter, and said very little--(such were Gammon's peremptory injunctions)--and that little only in expression of amazement--that any one could attach the slightest importance to the mere wanderings of a brain disturbed by illness. 'Twas certainly a ticklish matter, the duke felt, to press too far, or to think of intrusting it to third parties. His Grace very naturally concluded, that what his own superior tact and acuteness had failed in eliciting, could be detected by no one else. He frequently pressed Mr. Gammon, however, upon the subject; but that gentleman maintained the same calm front he had exhibited when first questioned by the duke; giving the same account of all he knew of Titmouse's pedigree--and clinching the matter by sending to his Grace a copy of the brief, and of the short-hand writer's notes of the trial--challenging, at the same time, the most rigorous investigation into every circumstance in the case. It was very natural for the duke, under these circumstances, to yield at length, and feel satisfied that the whole affair rested on no other basis than the distempered brain of his suffering kinsman. Nothing shook his Grace more, however, than the sight of Titmouse: for he looked, verily, one whom it was exceedingly difficult to suppose possessed of one drop of aristocratic blood!--Miss Macspleuchan, a woman of superior acuteness, was infinitely more difficult to satisfy upon the subject than the duke; and though she _said_ little, her manner showed that she was satisfied of the existence of some dreadful mystery or other, connected with Mr. Titmouse, of which Mr. Gammon was master--and the premature discovery of which had produced the deplorable effects upon the earl under which he was at that moment suffering. The earl, when alone with her, and unconscious of her presence, talked to himself constantly in the same strain; and when conversing with her, in his intervals of consciousness, repeated over and over again, without the slightest variation, facts which seemed as it were to have been burned in upon his brain. Miss Macspleuchan had--to conceal nothing from the reader--begun to cherish very warm feelings of attachment to Mr. Gammon; whose striking person, fascinating conversation, and flattering attention to herself--a thing quite unusual on the part of any of the earl's visitors--were well calculated to conduce to such a result. But from the moment of Lord Dreddlington's having made the statement which had been attended by such dreadful consequences, her feelings towards Mr. Gammon had been completely chilled and alienated. Her demeanor, on the few occasions of their meeting, was constrained and distant; her countenance clouded with suspicion, her manners frozen with reserve and hauteur.