“Here’s a letter for you, Bourbonais; I’ll finish mine while you’re reading it.” He handed the blue envelope to his friend, and, flinging himself into a chair, became again absorbed and ejaculatory. M. de la Bourbonais, meanwhile, proceeded to open his official-looking communication. He surveyed it with uplifted eyebrows, examined well the large red seal, and scrutinized the handwriting of the address, before he tore it open. His eye ran quickly over the page. A nervous twitch contracted his features; his hand shook as if a string at his elbow had been rudely pulled; but he controlled all further sign of emotion, and, after reading the contents twice over, silently folded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. Sir Simon had seen nothing; he was deep in suppressed denunciations of some rascally dun. “Hang me if I know what’s to be the end of it, or the end of me--an ounce of lead in my skull, most likely!” he burst out, ramming the bundle of offending documents into his coat-pocket. “The brutes are in league to drive me mad!” “Has anything new happened?” inquired the count anxiously. “I hoped things had arranged themselves of late?” “Not they! How can they when these vampires are sucking the blood of one? It’s pretty much like sucking a corpse!” he laughed sardonically. “The fools! If they would but have sense to see that it is their own interest not to drive me to desperation! But they will goad me to do something that will make an end of their chance of ever being paid!” M. de la Bourbonais ought to have been hardened to this sort of thing; but he was not. The vague threats and dark innuendoes always alarmed him. He never knew but that each crisis which called them out might be the supreme one that would bring about their fulfilment. At such moments he had not the heart to rebuke Sir Simon and add the bitterness of self-reproach to his excited feelings. His look of keen distress struck Sir Simon with compunction. “Oh! it will blow off, as it has done so often before, I suppose,” he said, tossing his head. “Here’s a letter from L---- to say he is coming down next week with a whole houseful of men to shoot. I’ve not seen L---- for an age. He’s a delightful fellow; he’ll cheer one up.” And the baronet heaved a sigh from the very depths of his afflicted spirit. “Mon cher, is it wise to be asking down crowds of people in this way?” asked Raymond dubiously. “I did not ask them! Don’t I tell you they have written to invite themselves?” It was true; but Sir Simon forgot how often he had besought his friends to do just what they were now doing--to write and say when they could come, and to bring as many as they liked with them. That had always been the way at the Court; and he was not the man to belie its old traditions. But Raymond, who had also his class of noble traditions, could not see it. “Why not write frankly, and, without explaining the precise motive, say that you cannot at present receive any one?”