Lady
Carnegy loved pleasure mightily, painted her face "devilishly," and
drove in the park flauntingly. She was endowed with considerable beauty
of form and great tenderness of heart, as many gallants acknowledged
with gratitude. Now when the Duke of York made advances to her, she
received them with all the satisfaction he could desire; an intimacy
therefore followed, which she was the better able to entertain on
account of her husband's absence in Scotland. Whilst my Lord Carnegy
was in that country, his father, the Earl of Southesk, died, and he
succeeded to the title and estates. In due time the new earl returned to
London and his wife, and was greeted by rumours of the friendship which
in his absence had sprung up between my lady and the duke. These, as
became a good husband, he refused to believe, until such time as he was
enabled to prove their veracity. Now, though his royal highness did not
cease to honour my lady with his visits on her husband's return, yet out
of respect to decorum, and in order to silence scandalous tongues, he
from that time invariably called on her accompanied by a friend.

It therefore came to pass that one day he requested an honest, foolish
Irishman, Dick Talbot, afterwards Duke of Tyrconnel, to attend him
in his visit to the lady. He could scarcely have selected a man more
unfitted to the occasion, inasmuch as Talbot was wholly devoid of tact,
and possessed a mind apt to wander at large at critical moments. He had
but recently returned from Portugal, and was not aware my Lord Carnegy
had in the meantime become Earl of Southesk, nor had he ever met the
lady who shared that title until introduced to her by the duke. When
that ceremony had been duly performed and a few sentences interchanged
between them, Talbot, acting on instructions previously received,
retired into an ante-room and took his post at a window that he might
divert himself by viewing the street, and observing those who approached
the house.

Here he remained for some time, but the study of mankind which the view
admitted did not afford sufficient interest to prevent him becoming
absorbed in his own thoughts, and indifferent to all objects surrounding
him. From this mental condition he was presently aroused by seeing a
carriage draw up to the door, and its occupant descend and quickly enter
the house. Talbot was so forgetful of his duty that he omitted apprising
the duke of this fact or making any movement until the door o