The housekeeper left the room as she spoke, scarcely knowing whether she stood on her head or her heels, so completely was she confounded by this arrival of Lady Level's--and nothing wherewith to receive her! Mrs. Edwards had her head and hands full just then. As Lady Level moved forward, her dress came into contact with a light chair, and moved it. The invalid started, and raised himself on his elbow. "Why!--who--is it?" "It is I, Lord Level," she said, advancing to the bed. He looked strangely amazed and perplexed. He could not believe his own eyes, and stared at her as though he would discover whether she was really before him, or whether he was in a dream. "Don't you know me?" she asked gently. "Is it--Blanche?" "Yes." "But where have you come from?--what brings you here?" he slowly ejaculated. "I came down by train to-day. I have come to speak to you." "You were in Germany. I left you in Germany!" "I thought I had been there long enough: too long; and I quitted it. Archibald, I could not stay there. Had I done so, I should have been ill as you are. I think I should have died." He said nothing for a few moments, and appeared to be lost in thought. Then he drew her face down to his, and kissed it. "You ought not to have come over without my permission, Blanche." "I did not travel alone. Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Ravensworth chanced to put up at the inn on their homeward route, and I took the opportunity to come over with them." The information evidently did not please Lord Level. His brow contracted. "You wrote me word that you had had an accident," she continued. "How could I be contented to remain away after that? So I came over: and I went to your rooms in Holles Street----" "Why on earth did you go there?" he sharply interrupted. "When I had left them." "But I did not know you had left them. How was I to know you had come to Marshdale if you never told me so? When I found you had left Holles Street, I went straight to Gloucester Place. Papa has just come home from Jersey." "You ought to have remained in Germany until I was able to join you," he reiterated irritably; and Blanche could not avoid seeing that he was growing agitated and feverish. "What's to become of you? Where are you to be?" "First of all, I want to have an explanation with you," said Blanche. "I came over on purpose to have it; to tell you many things. One is, that I will no longer submit to be treated as a child----" "Blanche!" he curtly interrupted. "Well?" "You are acting as a child now, and as nothing else. This nonsense that you are talking--I am not in a condition to hear it." "It is not nonsense," said Blanche. "It is what I will not listen to. It was the height of folly to come here. All you can do now is to go back to London by the next train." "Go back where?" she passionately asked. "I have no home in London."