Fortune seemed to be showering her gifts upon him with a bounteous hand. Nothing could have been more propitious than this meeting with General Harborough, who had promised all the help his influence could afford to the army coach. * * * * * The General went on to his destination. The gay white city of Bath had no attraction for him upon this particular afternoon. He called on the widow of his old friend, and comforted her as much as it was possible for any one to comfort her in her great sorrow. He dined alone and sadly at his hotel; and as he sat and pondered on the events of the last week, he began to speculate how much or how little grief _his_ widow would feel when her day of mourning came. Would her eyelids be puffy and red as poor Mrs. Thornton's had been this afternoon, when he was talking to her? Would her swollen lips quiver, and her distorted features twitch convulsively? Would her whole frame be shaken with sobs when she talked of the departed? He could not imagine Lady Valeria with puffy eyelids or swollen lips. He pictured her mourning gracefully, clad in softest white draperies, reclining in a darkened room, in an atmosphere perfumed with tuberose and stephanotis. He pictured her with a sphinx-like countenance, calm, beautiful, an expression which might mean deepest grief or stoniest indifference, as the world chose to construe it. No, honestly, after considering the question from every possible point of view, General Harborough did not believe that his wife would grieve for him. "It will be a relief to her when I am gone," he said to himself. "How could I expect her to grieve as Thornton's wife grieves? Those two were boy and girl together, had been husband and wife for thirty years." His dinner had been only a pretence of dining, a mockery which had made the head-waiter quite unhappy. Nothing so distresses a good waiter as a guest who won't eat. The waiter would have been still more troubled in mind had he known that this fine-looking old man, with the erect figure and broad shoulders, had eaten hardly anything for the last three days. The General had been suffering all that time from a fever of the brain which had brought about a feverish condition of the body. He could neither eat nor sleep. He lay broad awake in the unfamiliar room at the hotel, staring at the blank white blinds, faintly illuminated by the lamps in the street below--he lay and thought over his wedded life, which unrolled itself before him in a series of pictures, and he saw the bitter truth underlying his marriage with Lord Carlavarock's daughter. He had been nothing but a convenience to Valeria, the provider of fine houses and fine gowns, horses and carriages. She had not even cared for him as friend and protector. She had lived her own life; paying him for all benefits with sweet false words, and sweeter falser kisses.