She had no love for the country, nor for a secluded life, but to settle in his very home must be, she argued, the best way by which to come in contact with Lord Francis Onslow. Even if he did not come there he must, sooner or later, learn the name of his tenant, and be drawn into the circle of her love again. She found no difficulty in the matter. Her references were the best of all--ready cash--and Mr. Hewett had been instructed to let The Grange as soon as possible. Her foreign accent somewhat puzzled him, and he had mentioned her to his client (as Onslow told Lord Castleton) simply as a foreigner. Perhaps she had tried to increase his mystification by speaking as incoherently and writing as illegibly as she could. Anyway, she secured The Grange, and took possession of it. How much she reveled at first in the thought that she was living in the house which Lord Francis called his own, using the same furniture, and walking in the same garden that he had been used to walk in. Before long she hoped that he would be there too, watching the moon rise above the summits of the fine old trees. She searched the house for some memento of him--a cast-off glove, a faded flower. But the housemaid’s broom had been too busy, and the Grange was inviolate from attic to basement. Only in a little drawer in his looking-glass stand she had found a few of his visiting cards, evidently forgotten or overlooked. “Lord Francis Onslow, The Grange, Chiddingford,” and on the other side, “The Corinthians, Pall Mall.” How sweet the words looked! The enraptured woman raised them to her lips as she thought that some day she might own a corresponding passport to society. Meantime Mme. de Vigny did not enjoy her solitude long. While the man she dreamed of was hiding himself in Paris, and on the _Seamew_, others of her acquaintance tracked her to The Grange, and intruded their presence upon her. Lucille de Vigny was too beautiful, and, unfortunately, too notorious, to conceal herself successfully. She had had many admirers besides Lord Francis Onslow, and before she had been many weeks at Chiddingford they commenced to run down from London to call upon her. And she was pleased to see them. She had not been used to the company of her own thoughts. They proved ugly company to her on occasions--she had not always the courage to look back--and she earnestly hoped to make for herself a future on which the past should have no power to obtrude. So, pending the return of Lord Francis, she was glad to welcome the various friends who considered it worth their while to travel down to see her. Among them was Colonel Uriah B. Clutterbuck, a Senator from the United States, who had made a large fortune over railway iron, and was trying to spend it in the old country. He had been an ardent admirer of Mme. de Vigny from the first day of their acquaintance, and would have proposed to her long before, had not Lord Francis Onslow’s claims stood in his way.