ext in severity to the chopping off of his fingers
by a man suspecting them of the bite of rabies.

An interview with Lady Arpington was granted him the following day.

She was a florid, aquiline, loud-voiced lady, evidently having no seat
for her wonderments, after his account of the origin of his acquaintance
with the admiral had quieted her suspicions. The world had only to stand
beside her, and it would hear what she had heard. She rushed to the
conclusion that Lord Fleetwood had married a person of no family.

'Really, really, that young man's freaks appear designed for the express
purpose of heightening our amazement!' she exclaimed. 'He won't easily
get beyond a wife in the east of London, at a shop; but there's no
knowing. Any wish of Admiral Baldwin Fakenham's I hold sacred. At least
I can see for myself. You can't tell me more of the facts? If Lord
Fleetwood's in town, I will call him here at once. I will drive down to
this address you give me. She is a civil person?'

'Her breeding is perfect,' said Gower.

'Perfect breeding, you say?' Lady Arpington was reduced to a murmur.
She considered the speaker: his outlandish garb, his unprotesting
self-possession. He spoke good English by habit, her ear told her. She
was of an eminence to judge of a man impartially, even to the sufferance
of an opinion from him, on a subject that lesser ladies would have
denied to his clothing. Outwardly simple, naturally frank, though
a tangle of the complexities inwardly, he was a touchstone for true
aristocracy, as the humblest who bear the main elements of it must be.
Certain humorous turns in his conversation won him an amicable smile
when he bowed to leave: they were the needed finish of a favourable
impression.

One day later the earl arrived in town, read Gower Woodseer's brief
words, and received the consequently expected summons, couched in a
great lady's plain imperative. She was connected with his family on the
paternal side.

He went obediently; not unwillingly, let the deputed historian of the
Marriage, turning over documents, here say. He went to Lady Arpington
disposed for marital humaneness and jog-trot harmony, by condescension;
equivalent to a submitting to the drone of an incessant psalm at the
drum of the ear. He was, in fact, rather more than inclined that way.
When very young, at the age of thirteen, a mood of religious fervour had
spiritualized the dulness of Protestant pew and pulpit for him. Another