ed me as I shut the door again and crossed
the room to a second door which led into my bed-chamber. She suddenly
stepped up to me, just as I was entering the room, and laid her hand on
my arm.

"What do I see in your face?" she asked as much of herself as of
me--with her eyes fixed in keen inquiry on mine.

"You shall know directly," I answered. "Let me get my bonnet and cloak
first."

"Do you mean to leave the house?"

"I do."

She rang the bell. I quietly dressed myself, to go out.

The servant answered the bell, as I returned to the sitting-room.

"Tell your master I wish to see him instantly," said Lady Claudia.

"My master has gone out, my lady."

"To his club?"

"I believe so, my lady."

"I will send you with a letter to him. Come back when I ring again." She
turned to me as the man withdrew. "Do you refuse to stay here until the
General returns?"

"I shall be happy to see the General, if you will inclose my address in
your letter to him."

Replying in those terms, I wrote the address for the second time. Lady
Claudia knew perfectly well, when I gave it to her, that I was going
to a respectable house kept by a woman who had nursed me when I was a
child.

"One last question," she said. "Am I to tell the General that it is your
intention to marry your groom?"

Her tone stung me into making an answer which I regretted the moment it
had passed my lips.

"You can put it more plainly, if you like," I said. "You can tell the
General that it is my intention to marry _your_ son."

She was near the door, on the point of leaving me. As I spoke, she
turned with a ghastly stare of horror--felt about her with her hands as
if she was groping in darkness--and dropped on the floor.

I instantly summoned help. The women-servants carried her to my bed.
While they were restoring her to herself, I wrote a few lines telling
the miserable woman how I had discovered her secret.

"Your husband's tranquillity," I added, "is as precious to me as my own.
As for your son, you know what he thinks of the mother who deserted him.
Your secret is safe in my keeping--safe from your husband, safe from
your son, to the end of my life."

I sealed up those words, and gave them to her when she had come to
herself again. I never heard from her in reply. I have never seen her
from that time to this. She knows she can trust me.

And what did my good uncle say, when we next met? I would rather report
what he did, when he had got