light of it to his daughter, after the fashion he condemned in Lord
Romfrey, to whom however he spoke earnestly of the necessity for
partially taking his wife into his confidence to the extent of letting
her know that a slight fever was running its course with Nevil.

'There will be no slight fever in my wife's blood,' said the earl. 'I
stand to weather the cape or run to wreck, and it won't do to be taking
in reefs on a lee-shore. You don't see what frets her, colonel. For
years she has been bent on Nevil's marriage. It's off: but if you
catch Cecilia by the hand and bring her to us--I swear she loves the
fellow!--that's the medicine for my wife. Say: will you do it? Tell Lady
Romfrey it shall be done. We shall stand upright again!'

'I'm afraid that's impossible, Romfrey,' said the colonel.

'Play at it, then! Let her think it. You're helping me treat an invalid.
Colonel! my old friend! You save my house and name if you do that. It's
a hand round a candle in a burst of wind. There's Nevil dragged by
a woman into one of their reeking hovels--so that Miss Denham at
Shrapnel's writes to Lady Romfrey--because the woman's drunken husband
voted for him at the Election, and was kicked out of employment, and
fell upon the gin-bottle, and the brats of the den died starving, and
the man sickened of a fever; and Nevil goes in and sits with him! Out of
that tangle of folly is my house to be struck down? It looks as if
the fellow with his infernal "humanity," were the bad genius of an old
nurse's tale. He's a good fellow, colonel, he means well. This fever
will cure him, they say it sobers like bloodletting. He's a gallant
fellow; you know that. He fought to the skeleton in our last big war.
On my soul, I believe he's good for a husband. Frenchwoman or not, that
affair's over. He shall have Steynham and Holdesbury. Can I say more?
Now, colonel, you go in to the countess. Grasp my hand. Give me that
help, and God bless you! You light up my old days. She's a noble woman:
I would not change her against the best in the land. She has this craze
about Nevil. I suppose she'll never get over it. But there it is: and we
must feed her with the spoon.'

Colonel Halkett argued stutteringly with the powerful man: 'It's the
truth she ought to hear, Romfrey; indeed it is, if you 'll believe me.
It 's his life she is fearing for. She knows half.'

'She knows positively nothing, colonel. Miss Denham's first letter
spoke of the fellow's havin