"Where do you mean to pass your autumn, Lord Albert?" she said one day to him, speaking as if in an unpremeditated manner, and announcing at the same time her intention of going to Tunbridge. "Perhaps you will be induced, if you have no other plan in view, to pay me a visit there?" "Yes," he replied, sighing, "I shall like it exceedingly. Where can _I_ go but where you are? Nobody else in the wide world, save yourself, cares for me;"--and a tender glance from Lady Hamlet Vernon gave back a confirmation of the latter part of this querulous speech. Many days more did not elapse, when Lord Albert, although pressed by Lord Glenmore in the most friendly manner to accompany him to his country seat during the recess, misled by the unfortunate and false conviction that no one participated in his feelings save her who had in reality caused their bitterness, blindly yielded to the delusion of this hollow attachment, and found himself loitering round Lady Hamlet Vernon's footsteps on the furze-clad hills of Tunbridge. CHAPTER XII. PROCEEDINGS ABROAD. However small the interest which Lady Tilney really took in preserving the purity of Lady Glenmore's character _intacte_, still her wishes for the preservation of that outward decorum which she deemed necessary towards the maintenance of her _coterie_'s respectability were perfectly sincere. It will not, however, appear that in this instance her wishes were likely to be realized. On landing on the continent, the point to which Lady Glenmore and Lady Tenderden directed their steps was Spa, having abandoned their previous intention of going to Barèges; a change in their plans, which they decided upon partly from the length of the journey, and partly from Lady Glenmore's not liking to be so very far from her husband. When they reached Spa, they found some few of their acquaintance already there, foreigners as well as English; and ten days had not elapsed from their arrival, before Mr. Leslie Winyard, accompanied by Lord Gascoigne, joined their circle. Lady Tenderden had already made a selection of such as were to constitute her society, and of course these latter persons were admitted in the number. Allowing for change of place and difference of hours, the same desultory mode of life was pursued by them at Spa as in London, and at best the same vacuity of mind and intention became the result. This negative description of the passing hours, however, was not applicable to all. Of course, in the present instance, there could have been but one motive which induced Mr. Leslie Winyard to resign the pleasures of an English autumn for the waters of Spa; and this fact he seemed at no pains to conceal. Lady Glenmore was his avowed object.