Her face turned white. "He has not got himself taken, surely!" "No; it's not so bad as that--yet." "Thank Heaven for it!" she returned. "I knew it was him, and I'm all in a twitter about him from morning till night. I can't sleep or eat for dreading the news that any moment may bring of him. It seems to me, Mr. Charles, that one must needs be for ever in a twitter in this world; before one trouble is mended, another turns up. No sooner am I a bit relieved about poor Nancy, that unfortunate daughter of mine, than there comes Mr. Tom." The relief that Leah spoke of was this: some relatives of Leah's former husband, Nancy's father, had somehow got to hear of Nancy's misfortunes. Instead of turning from her, they had taken her and her cause in hand, and had settled her and her three children in a general shop in Hampshire near to themselves, where she was already beginning to earn enough for a good living. The man who was the cause of all the mischief had emigrated, and meant never to return to Europe. And Leah had taken my advice in the matter, and disclosed all to Watts. He was not in the least put out by it, as she had feared he would be; only told her she was a simpleton for not having told him before. CHAPTER VII. WITH MR. JONES My Dear Charles,--I particularly wish you to come to me. I want some legal advice, and I would rather you acted for me than anyone else. Come up this morning, please. Your affectionate sister, BLANCHE. The above note, brought from Gloucester Place on Monday morning by one of Lady Level's servants, reached me before ten o'clock. By the dashing character of the handwriting, I judged that Blanche had not been in the calmest temper when she penned it. "Is Lord Level at home?" I inquired of the man Sanders. "No, sir. His lordship went down to Marshdale yesterday evening. A telegram came for him, and I think it was in consequence of that he went." I wrote a few words to Blanche, telling her I would be with her as soon as I could, and sent it by Sanders. But a lawyer's time is not always his own. One client after another kept coming in that morning, as if on purpose; and it was half-past twelve in the day when I reached Gloucester Place. The house in Gloucester Place was, and had been for some little time now, entirely rented by Lord Level of Major Carlen. The Major, when in London, had rooms in Seymour Street, but lived chiefly at his club. "Her ladyship has gone out, sir," was Sanders's greeting to me, when he answered my ring at the door-bell. "Gone out?" "Just gone," confirmed Major Carlen, who was there, it seemed, and came forward in the wake of Sanders. "Come in, Charles." He turned into the dining-room, and I after him. "Blanche ought to have waited in," I remarked. "I have come up at the greatest inconvenience."