d been the evening
before, on the subject of the mysterious "arrangement" (as the lawyer
called it) which is hanging over our heads. An hour afterwards,
however, he suddenly entered the morning-room, where his wife and I
were waiting, with our hats on, for Madame Fosco to join us, and
inquired for the Count.

"We expect to see him here directly," I said.

"The fact is," Sir Percival went on, walking nervously about the room,
"I want Fosco and his wife in the library, for a mere business
formality, and I want you there, Laura, for a minute too." He stopped,
and appeared to notice, for the first time, that we were in our walking
costume. "Have you just come in?" he asked, "or were you just going
out?"

"We were all thinking of going to the lake this morning," said Laura.
"But if you have any other arrangement to propose----"

"No, no," he answered hastily. "My arrangement can wait. After lunch
will do as well for it as after breakfast. All going to the lake, eh? A
good idea. Let's have an idle morning--I'll be one of the party."

There was no mistaking his manner, even if it had been possible to
mistake the uncharacteristic readiness which his words expressed, to
submit his own plans and projects to the convenience of others. He was
evidently relieved at finding any excuse for delaying the business
formality in the library, to which his own words had referred. My
heart sank within me as I drew the inevitable inference.

The Count and his wife joined us at that moment. The lady had her
husband's embroidered tobacco-pouch, and her store of paper in her
hand, for the manufacture of the eternal cigarettes. The gentleman,
dressed, as usual, in his blouse and straw hat, carried the gay little
pagoda-cage, with his darling white mice in it, and smiled on them, and
on us, with a bland amiability which it was impossible to resist.

"With your kind permission," said the Count, "I will take my small
family here--my poor-little-harmless-pretty-Mouseys, out for an airing
along with us. There are dogs about the house, and shall I leave my
forlorn white children at the mercies of the dogs? Ah, never!"

He chirruped paternally at his small white children through the bars of
the pagoda, and we all left the house for the lake.

In the plantation Sir Percival strayed away from us. It seems to be
part of his restless disposition always to separate himself from his
companions on these occasions, and always to occupy himsel