in, the admirable English husband
made his wife the gratified mother of two beautiful offspring."
Parenthood, however, would appear to have had an odd effect upon this
couple, for, continues de Mirecourt: "_Mais, en depit de ces gages
d'amour, leur bonheur est trouble par des querelles intestines._"

It was from Spain that, having adjusted their differences temporarily,
the couple went back to Paris. As a peace offering, a rising young
artist, Claudius Jacquand, was commissioned to paint both their
portraits on a single canvas. During, however, another domestic
rupture, Heald demanded that Lola's features should be painted out. "I
want nothing," he said, "to remind me of that woman." Unfortunately,
Lola had just made a similar demand where the Cornet was concerned.
Jacquand was a man of talent, but he could not do impossibilities.
Thereupon, Lola, breathing fire and fury, took the canvas away and
hung it with its back to the front in her bedroom. "To allow my
husband to watch me always would," she said, "be indelicate!"

There is a theory that, within the next twelve months, the
ill-assorted union was dissolved by Heald getting upset in a
rowing-boat and drowned in Lisbon harbour. The theory, however, is a
little difficult to reconcile with the fact that, on the close of the
Great Exhibition at the end of 1851, he attended an auction of the
effects, where he bought a parquet floor and had it laid down in his
drawing-room at Berrymead Priory. After this he had a number of
structural alterations added; fitted the windows with some stained
glass, bearing his crest and initials; and, finally, did not give up
the lease until 1855. Pretty good work, this, for a man said to have
met with a watery grave six years earlier.

As a matter of strict fact, Cornet Heald was not drowned, either at
Lisbon or anywhere else. He died in his bed at Folkestone, in 1856.
The medical certificate attributed the cause of death to consumption.
In the _Gentleman's Magazine_, however, the diagnosis was different,
viz., "broken heart."

All things pass. In 1859 the executors of the dashing Cornet sold the
Berrymead property for L7000, to be repurchased soon afterwards for
L23,000 by a land-development company. The house now serves as the
premises of the Priory Constitutional Club, Acton. A certain amount of
evidence of Cornet Heald's one-time occupancy still exists. Thus his
crest and motto, _Nemo sibi Nascitur_, are let into the mosaic
floorin