While Edward Heathcote was on the other side of the Channel trying to find a solution for the problem of Léonie Lemarque's death, which should also be a complete acquittal of Hilda's suitor, Bothwell himself was bent upon solving his own particular problem, that great perplexity of his social life, which had weighed upon him more or less heavily for the last three years. He had been to Plymouth twice since his decisive interview with Hilda; but on each occasion it had been impossible for him to obtain so much as five minutes' _tête-à-tête_ with the lady he went to see; and that which he had to say to her could not be said in five minutes, or in five times five minutes. And now, while his champion was faithfully toiling in his interest, and while Hilda was giving him all her thoughts, and most of her prayers, Bothwell set out on his familiar Plymouth journey for the third time within ten days, and with a letter in his pocket which held out the hope of an opportunity for confidential talk. "You looked miserable the last time you were here," wrote the lady, "and you looked as if you had something very serious to say to me. I am bored to death by the General's hangers-on--he is much too kind to the nobodies who besiege us here--and I hardly ever know what it is to be alone. But if you will come to-morrow, I will take care to keep other people out. I shall pretend a headache, and deny myself to everybody. You must walk boldly in by the garden, contrive not to meet any of the servants, and you will find me sitting in the colonnade. It will all seem accidental. When the General comes to his afternoon tea, he will find you there, and we shall tell him how you wandered in, and forced the _consigne_. You are such a favourite that he will smile at a liberty from you which he would be the first to resent in any one else." Bothwell sat in his corner of the railway-carriage, meditating upon this letter in his breast-pocket. How hard and cruel and false and mean the whole tone of the lady's correspondence seemed to him, now that the glamour of a fatal infatuation had passed from his brain and his senses; now that he was able to estimate the enchantress at her real value; now that his newly-awakened conscience had shown him the true colour of his own conduct during the last three years!