ture living that fellow wouldn't get to serve him,
if he knew the trick. We should all of us be marching on London
at Shrapnel's heels. The political mania is just as incurable as
hydrophobia, and he's bitten. That's clear.'

'Bitten perhaps: but not mad. As you have always contended, the true
case is incurable, but it is very rare: and is this one?'

'It's uncommonly like a true case, though I haven't seen him foam at the
mouth, and shun water-as his mob does.'

Rosamund restrained some tears, betraying the effort to hide the
moisture. 'I am no match for you, my lord. I try to plead on his
behalf;--I do worse than if I were dumb. This I most earnestly say: he
is the Nevil Beauchamp who fought for his country, and did not abandon
her cause, though he stood there--we had it from Colonel Halkett--a
skeleton: and he is the Nevil who--I am poorly paying my debt to
him!--defended me from the aspersions of his cousin.'

'Boys!' Lord Romfrey ejaculated.

'It is the same dispute between them as men.'

'Have you forgotten my proposal to shield you from liars and
scandalmongers?'

'Could I ever forget it?' Rosamund appeared to come shining out of a
cloud. 'Princeliest and truest gentleman, I thought you then, and I know
you to be, my dear lord. I fancied I had lived the scandal down. I was
under the delusion that I had grown to be past backbiting: and that no
man could stand before me to insult and vilify me. But, for a woman in
any so-called doubtful position, it seems that the coward will not be
wanting to strike her. In quitting your service, I am able to
affirm that only once during the whole term of it have I consciously
overstepped the line of my duties: it was for Nevil: and Captain
Baskelett undertook to defend your reputation, in consequence.'

'Has the rascal been questioning your conduct?' The earl frowned.

'Oh, no! not questioning: he does not question, he accuses: he never
doubted: and what he went shouting as a boy, is plain matter of fact to
him now. He is devoted to you. It was for your sake that he desired
me to keep my name from being mixed up in a scandal he foresaw the
occurrence of in your house.'

'He permitted himself to sneer at you?'

'He has the art of sneering. On this occasion he wished to be direct and
personal.'

'What sort of hints were they?'

Lord Romfrey strode away from her chair that the answer might be easy
to her, for she was red, and evidently suffering from shame as well as