Exhausted by bodily fatigue and mental emotion, Letty slept soundly till the church clock, striking nine, roused her from a sleep, that had bordered upon stupor. Where was she? asked recovering consciousness. The scene was strange, and beautiful--a wide-open window, the perfume of flowers, above, in the summer sky, a slim young moon. Was she dead, and was this house Heaven? Suddenly, with a torrential rush, black memory overwhelmed her. During the next twenty-four hours, Frances Lumley was all that a sister, and more than some sisters would be, to the unhappy refugee. She consoled, soothed, cheered her,--keeping her own tremors respecting Lancelot entirely out of sight. Then Mrs. Hesketh appeared upon the scene, and carried her friend away to Oldcourt. Francie Lumley was a dear girl, with a heart of gold, but it was not seemly that Mrs. Blagdon should be her guest, with the case of Blagdon _v._ Blagdon and Lumley, imminent in the Law Courts. It soon became noised abroad that Blagdon was about to divorce his wife, and mothers with daughters, once more began to cast expectant eyes on Sharsley. CHAPTER XXII The case of Blagdon _v._ Blagdon and Lumley divided the County into factions and separated chief friends. Some said, that _now_ they thoroughly understood why Blagdon was reluctant to produce his wife in Society; obviously she was mentally unsound--a woman who ran away, and returned to him the next day! She had been a shy, odd creature from the first. The opposition were violent partisans, and declared that a girl so young, pretty, and innocent, had been driven to desperation by the brutality of her monster of a husband. It was a curious but not uncommon circumstance, that most of the women took the part of the man; whilst the men-folk, and in great numbers, were solid for the lady. Letty’s few relatives lived in Ireland, and were not a little shocked to learn of her being mixed up in a scandal. They hid the paper from their friends, and discussed their black sheep in horrified whispers. The character of Mr. Blagdon had not been wafted across the Irish sea. When the newly married couple were in London, one or two of the Irish clan had attempted to make their cousin’s acquaintance--not because she had made a great match, but that it was an opportunity of seeing poor Dermot’s daughter, and blood is thicker than water. However, their civil advances were rudely repulsed by Hugo (who hated the Irish as a nation) and did not want to be bothered with a pack of his wife’s relatives; and they merely saw a heavy-browed, formidable personage, and a pretty, shy girl with stiff manners. And now this pretty, shy girl had come to grief--wealth and importance had turned her silly little head. It was a pity!