you dolt!"

Harry stood petrified for a moment, watching the two men sway together
in this fierce embrace; then he turned and took to his heels. When he
cast a glance over his shoulder he saw the general prostrate under
Charlie's knee, but still making desperate efforts to reverse the
situation; and the gardens seemed to have filled with people, who were
running from all directions toward the scene of the fight. This
spectacle lent the secretary wings, and he did not relax his pace until
he had gained the Bayswater Road, and plunged at random into an
unfrequented by-street.

To see two gentlemen of his acquaintance thus brutally mauling each
other was deeply shocking to Harry. He desired to forget the sight; he
desired, above all, to put as great a distance as possible between
himself and General Vandeleur; and in his eagerness for this he forgot
everything about his destination, and hurried before him headlong and
trembling. When he remembered that Lady Vandeleur was the wife of one
and sister of the other of these gladiators, his heart was touched with
sympathy for a woman so distressingly misplaced in life. Even his own
situation in the general's house looked hardly so pleasing as usual in
the light of these violent transactions.

He had walked some little distance, busied with these meditations,
before a slight collision with another passenger reminded him of the
bandbox on his arm.

"Heavens!" cried he, "where was my head? and whither have I wandered?"

Thereupon he consulted the envelope which Lady Vandeleur had given him.
The address was there, but without a name. Harry was simply directed to
ask for "the gentleman who accepted a parcel from Lady Vandeleur," and
if he were not at home to await his return. The gentleman, added the
note, should present a receipt in the handwriting of the lady herself.
All this seemed mighty mysterious, and Harry was above all astonished at
the omission of the name and the formality of the receipt. He had
thought little of this last when he heard it dropped in conversation;
but reading it in cold blood, and taking it in connection with the other
strange particulars, he became convinced that he was engaged in perilous
affairs. For half a moment he had a doubt of Lady Vandeleur herself; for
he found these obscure proceedings somewhat unworthy of so high a lady,
and became more critical when her secrets were preserved against
himself. But her empire over his spirit was too complet