ght crowd and do their worst; she
fought for the honour of her family.

At midday of the third day Lady Charlotte was reduced to the condition
of those fortresses which wave defiantly the flag, but deliver no
further shot, awaiting the assault. Her body, affected by hideous
old age, succumbed. Her will was unshaken. She would not write to her
bankers. Mr. Eglett might go to them, if he thought fit. Rowsley was
to understand that he might call himself married; she would have no
flower-basket bunch of a sister-in-law thrust upon her.

Lord Ormont and Mr. Eglett walked down to her bankers in the afternoon.
As a consequence of express injunctions given by my lady five years
previously, the assistant-manager sought an interview with her.

The jewels were lodged at her house the day ensuing. They were examined,
verified by the list in Lady Charlotte's family record-book, and then
taken away--forcibly, of course--by her brother.

He laughed in his dry manner; but the reminiscent glimpses, helping him
to see the humour of it, stirred sensations of the tug it had been with
that combative Charlotte, and excused him for having shrunk from the
encounter until he conceived it to be necessary.

Settlement of the affair with Morsfield now claimed his attention. The
ironical tolerance he practised in relation to Morsfield when Aminta had
no definite station before the world changed to an angry irritability
at the man's behaviour now that she had stepped forth under his
acknowledgement of her as the Countess of Ormont. He had come round to a
rather healthier mind regarding his country, and his introduction of the
Countess of Ormont to the world was his peace-offering.

As he returned home earlier on the third day, he found his diligent
secretary at work. The calling on Captain May and the writing to the
sort of man were acts obnoxious to his dignity; so he despatched Weyburn
to the captain's house, one in a small street of three narrow tenements
abutting on aristocracy and terminating in mews. Weyburn's mission was
to give the earl's address at Great Marlow for the succeeding days, and
to see Captain May, if the captain was at home. During his absence the
precious family jewel-box was locked in safety. Aminta and her friend,
little Miss Collett, were out driving, by the secretary's report. The
earl considered it a wholesome feature of Aminta's character that she
should have held to her modest schoolmate the fact spoke well for both