"Come!" he wrote. "To the dust of Leyden you are superadding the mould of Cumberland. Come and brush yourself clean with the contact of wits! There is much afoot that should interest you. What with Romish priests and English bishops, the town is in ferment. Moreover, a new beauty hath come to Court. There is nothing very strange in that. But she is a foreigner, and her rivals have as yet discovered no scandal to smirch her with. There is something very strange in that. Such a miracle is well worth a man's beholding. She hails from the Tyrol and is the widow of one Count Lukstein, who was in London last year. She wears no mourning for her husband, and hath many suitors. I have of late won much money at cards, and so readily forgive you for that you were the death of Ph[oe]be." The letter ran on to some considerable length, but I read no more of it. Indeed, I understood little of what I had read. The face of Countess Lukstein seemed stamped upon the page to the obscuring of the inscription. I passed it across to Jack without a word, and he perused it silently and tossed it back. All that evening I sat smoking my pipe and pondering the proposal. An overmastering desire to see her features alive with the changing lights of expression, began to possess me. The more I thought, the more ardently I longed to behold her. If only I could see her eyes alert and glancing, if only I could hear her voice, I might free myself from the picture of the blank, impassive mask which she wore in my dreams. That way, I fancied, and that way alone, should I find peace. "I shall go," I said at last, knocking the ashes from my pipe. "I shall go to-morrow." "You shan't!" cried Jack vehemently, springing up and facing me. "She knows you. She has seen you." "She has never seen me," I replied steadily, and he gazed into my face with a look of bewilderment which gradually changed into fear. "Are you mad, Morrice?" he asked, in a broken whisper, and took a step or two backwards, keeping his eyes fixed upon mine. "Nay, Jack," said I; "but unless God helps me, I soon shall be. He may be helping me now. I trust so, for this visit alone can save me." "She has never seen you?" he repeated. "Swear it! Morrice! Swear it!" I did as he bade me. "What brings her to England?" he mused. "What kept us wandering about Italy?" I answered. "The fear to return home." "'Twill not serve," said he. "She wears no mourning for her husband." I wondered at this myself, but could come at no solution, and so got me to bed. That night, for the first time since I left Austria, I slept dreamlessly. In the morning I was yet more determined to go. I felt, indeed, as though I had no power to stay, and, hurrying on my servants, I prepared to set out at two of the afternoon. Udal and two other of my men I took with me. "Morrice," said Jack, as he stood upon the steps of the porch, "don't stay with your cousin! Hire a lodging of your own!" "Why?" I asked, in surprise.