“Fairfield,” said Aubrey, “you could do me a great service if you would. Colonel Kingsward has just told me that he can’t send out a royal commission to examine my friends on this subject. You see him sometimes, I suppose. I know you belong to one of his clubs. Still more, he’s at his office all the morning, and you know him well enough to look in upon him there.” “Well?” said Fairfield, dubiously. “Couldn’t you stretch a point for my sake, and go--and tell him the real state of affairs in respect to Miss Lance, and how untrue it is, how ridiculously untrue, that she was kept at Forest-leigh by any will of mine? Why, it was a thing, as you have just said, that all the county knew! An infatuation--and nothing less than the bane of my whole married life.” “Yes, I know--everybody thought so,” Mr. Fairfield said. That new idea--was it perhaps germinating faintly in his mind?--no one had thought of any other explanation, but yet----” “If you were only to say so--only as much as that--that all my friends recognised the state of the case.” “I could say that,” said Fairfield, with hesitation. “Don’t think me unfriendly, Aubrey, but it’s a little awkward for a man to interfere in another man’s affairs, and it’s not only your affairs that I know so well, but you see Kingsward’s too----” “I am aware of that, Fairfield; still, to break off what I believe in my heart would be for his daughter’s happiness too----” “To be sure there’s the young lady to be taken into consideration,” said Fairfield, dubiously. It will be as well to carry this incident to its completion at once. Mr. Fairfield at the last allowed himself to be convinced, and he went that afternoon to the club, to which he still belonged by some early military experiences, and where Colonel Kingsward was one of those who ruled supreme. He knew exactly when to find him at the club, where he strolled in after leaving his office, to refresh himself with a cup of tea, or something else in its place. The intercessor went up to the table at which the Colonel sat with the evening paper, and conversed for a little on the topics of the day. After these had been run over, and the prospects of war slightly discussed--for Colonel Kingsward had not much respect for Mr. Fairfield’s opinion on that subject--the latter gentleman said abruptly-- “I say, Kingsward, I am very sorry to hear there is some hitch in the marriage which I was so glad to hear of last week.” “Ah, oh! So Leigh has been with you, I presume?” the Colonel replied. “Yes; and, upon my life, Colonel, there is not a word of truth in any talk you may have heard about that Miss Lance----. We all know quite well the whole business. You should hear Mary on the subject. Of course, he can’t say to you, poor fellow, that his first wife was a little queer, and that that woman made her her slave.” “No; it wasn’t to be expected that he would tell me that.”