“Ah, she knows them all! They thought they had secured her--indeed they were full sure of it; but as she said to poor Mr. Pemberton, they found they had hatched a duck. She was only flirting with Rome. The woman would flirt with the Holy Father, sir, if she had a chance. There's nothing serious, nothing real, nothing honest about her; but she charmed _you_, for all that--I see it. I see it all; and you 're to take moonlight rides with her over the Campagna. Ha, ha, ha! Haven't I hit it? Poor old Pemberton--fifty-eight if he was an hour--got a bad bronchitis with these same night excursions. Worse than that, he made the place too hot for him. Mrs. Trumpler--an active woman Mrs. T., and the eye of a hawk--would n't stand the 'few sweet moments,' as poor Pemberton in his simplicity called them. She threatened him with a general meeting, and a vote of censure, and a letter to the Bishop of Gibraltar; and she frightened him so that he resigned. I was away at the time at the baths at Ischia, or I 'd have tried to patch up matters. Indeed, as I told Mrs. T., I'd have tried to get rid of my Lady, instead of banishing poor Pemberton, as kind-hearted a creature as ever I met, and a capital whist-player. Not one of your new-fangled fellows, with the 'call for trumps' and all the last devices of the Portland, but a steady player, who never varied--did n't go chopping about, changing his suits, and making false leads, but went manfully through his hearts before he opened his spades. We were at Christ Church together. I knew him for a matter of six-and-thirty years, Mr. L'Estrange, and I pledge you my word of honor”--here his voice grew tremulous with agitation--“and in all that time I never knew him revoke!” He drew his hat over his eyes as he spoke, and leaning back in the seat seemed almost overcome by his emotions. “Will you turn in there at the small gate? It is a private entrance to my grounds. I 'll not ask you to come in to-day, sir. I'm a little flurried and nervous; but if you 'll join a sick man's dinner at two o'clock to-morrow--some rice and a chicken and a bit of fish--nothing more, I promise you. Well, well, I see it does not tempt you. My best thanks for your pleasant company. Let me see you soon. Take care of yourself, beware of my Lady, and avoid the moonlight!” Apparently this little sally seemed to revive the invalid, for he stepped up the approach to his house with a lively air and waved his hand pleasantly as he said adieu. “There's another still!” muttered L'Estrange as he inquired the way to Mrs. Trumpler's; “and I wish with all my heart it was over.”