'It will be death to you... Nevil!'

'That 's foolish. I can stand the air for a few minutes.'

'I 'll go,' said Jenny.

'Unprotected? No.'

'Cook shall come with me.'

'Two women!'

'Nevil, if you care a little for me, be good, be kind, submit.'

'He is half an hour behind dinner-time, and he's never late. Something
must have happened to him. Way for me, my dear girl.'

She stood firm between him and the door. It came to pass that she
stretched her hands to arrest him, and he seized the hands.

'Rather than you should go out in this cold weather, anything!' she
said, in the desperation of physical inability to hold him back.

'Ah!' Beauchamp crossed his arms round her. 'I'll wait for five
minutes.'

One went by, with Jenny folded, broken and sobbing, senseless, against
his breast.

They had not heard Dr. Shrapnel quietly opening the hall door and
hanging up his hat. He looked in.

'Beauchamp!' he exclaimed.

'Come, doctor,' said Beauchamp, and loosened his clasp of Jenny
considerately.

She disengaged herself.

'Beauchamp! now I die a glad man.'

'Witness, doctor, she 's mine by her own confession.'

'Uncle!' Jenny gasped. 'Oh! Captain Beauchamp, what an error! what
delusion!... Forget it. I will. Here are more misunderstandings! You
shall be excused. But be...'

'Be you the blessedest woman alive on this earth, my Jenny!' shouted
Dr. Shrapnel. 'You have the choice man on all the earth for husband,
sweetheart! Ay, of all the earth! I go with a message for my old friend
Harry Denham, to quicken him in the grave; for the husband of his girl
is Nevil Beauchamp! The one thing I dared not dream of thousands is
established. Sunlight, my Jenny!'

Beauchamp kissed her hand.

She slipped away to her chamber, grovelling to find her diminished self
somewhere in the mid-thunder of her amazement, as though it were to
discover a pin on the floor by the flash of lightning. Where was she!

This ensued from the apology of Lord Romfrey to Dr. Shrapnel.

CHAPTER LV. WITHOUT LOVE

At the end of November, Jenny Denham wrote these lines to Mr. Lydiard,
in reply to his request that she should furnish the latest particulars
of Nevil Beauchamp, for the satisfaction of the Countess of Romfrey:

'There is everything to reassure Lady Romfrey in the state of Captain
Beauchamp's health, and I have never seen him so placidly happy as he
has been since the arrival, yesterday morning, of a lady from France,
Mad