I?"

"Well, dear, you said that you would not disregard Sir William."

"Well, Clara, admitting that Ida is to go to Tangier, you will allow
that it is impossible for me to escort her?

"Utterly."

"And for you?

"While you are ill my place is by your side."

"There is your sister?"

"She is going to Florida."

"Lady Dumbarton, then?"

"She is nursing her father. It is out of the question."

"Well, then, whom can we possibly ask? Especially just as the season
is commencing. You see, Clara, the fates fight against Sir William."

His wife rested her elbows against the back of the great red chair, and
passed her fingers through the statesman's grizzled curls, stooping
down as she did so until her lips were close to his ear.

"There is Lord Arthur Sibthorpe," said she softly.

Lord Charles bounded in his chair, and muttered a word or two such as
were more frequently heard from Cabinet Ministers in Lord Melbourne's
time than now.

"Are you mad, Clara!" he cried. "What can have put such a thought into
your head?"

"The Prime Minister."

"Who? The Prime Minister?"

"Yes, dear. Now do, do be good! Or perhaps I had better not speak to
you about it any more."

"Well, I really think that you have gone rather too far to retreat."

"It was the Prime Minister, then, who told me that Lord Arthur was
going to Tangier."

"It is a fact, though it had escaped my memory for the instant."

"And then came Sir William with his advice about Ida. Oh! Charlie, it
is surely more than a coincidence!"

"I am convinced," said Lord Charles, with his shrewd, questioning gaze,
"that it is very much more than a coincidence, Lady Clara. You are a
very clever woman, my dear. A born manager and organiser."

Lady Clara brushed past the compliment.

"Think of our own young days, Charlie," she whispered, with her fingers
still toying with his hair. "What were you then? A poor man, not even
Ambassador at Tangier. But I loved you, and believed in you, and have
I ever regretted it? Ida loves and believes in Lord Arthur, and why
should she ever regret it either?"

Lord Charles was silent. His eyes were fixed upon the green branches
which waved outside the window; but his mind had flashed back to a
Devonshire country-house of thirty years ago, and to the one fateful
evening when, between old yew hedges, he paced along beside a slender
girl, and poured out to her his hopes, his fears, and his ambitious.
He took the wh