e
miserable by the energy and unrestrained language of one of her
own servants, Andrew Gowran by name, it hardly concerns us now to
inquire. Mr. Emilius did not succeed in effecting an entrance; but he
remained for some time in the neighbourhood, and had notices served
on the tenants in regard to the rents, which puzzled the poor folk
round Portray Castle very much. After a while Lady Eustace, finding
that her peace and comfort imperatively demanded that she should
prove the allegations which she had made, fled again from Portray
Castle to London, and threw herself into the hands of the Bonteens.
This took place just as Mr. Bonteen's hopes in regard to the
Chancellorship of the Exchequer were beginning to soar high, and when
his hands were very full of business. But with that energy for which
he was so conspicuous, Mr. Bonteen had made a visit to Bohemia during
his short Christmas holidays, and had there set people to work. When
at Prague he had, he thought, very nearly unravelled the secret
himself. He had found the woman whom he believed to be Mrs. Emilius,
and who was now living somewhat merrily in Prague under another name.
She acknowledged that in old days, when they were both young, she
had been acquainted with a certain Yosef Mealyus, at a time in
which he had been in the employment of a Jewish moneylender in the
city; but,--as she declared,--she had never been married to him.
Mr. Bonteen learned also that the gentleman now known as Mr. Joseph
Emilius of the London Chapel had been known in his own country as
Yosef Mealyus, the name which had been borne by the very respectable
Jew who was his father. Then Mr. Bonteen had returned home, and, as
we all know, had become engaged in matters of deeper import than even
the deliverance of Lady Eustace from her thraldom.

Mr. Emilius made no attempt to obtain the person of his wife while
she was under Mr. Bonteen's custody, but he did renew his offer
to compromise. If the estate could not afford to give him the two
thousand a year which he had first demanded, he would take fifteen
hundred. He explained all this personally to Mr. Bonteen, who
condescended to see him. He was very eager to make Mr. Bonteen
understand how bad even then would be his condition. Mr. Bonteen was,
of course, aware that he would have to pay very heavily for insuring
his wife's life. He was piteous, argumentative, and at first gentle;
but when Mr. Bonteen somewhat rashly told him that the evidence