charm." All the world might cast him out, but that one faithful
woman gave up home and name and honour, to follow him in his disgrace.
That was love indeed, however misplaced! I looked again at the dates and
made a calculation of the time divorces took then, and I saw that my
little darling girl could only have escaped illegitimacy by perhaps a
few hours!

What had her life been? I pictured it. They must have hidden diminished
heads in hole and corner places during the dreary years. Such a man as
Bobby Bulteel must have been, as George said, a weakling. The
Hartlefords were poor as church mice, and were not likely to assist a
scapegrace, who had dishonoured them. I remembered hearing that on the
old Lord Braxted's death years ago, Braxted was sold to the
Merrion-Walters, Ironfounders from Leeds. No doubt the old man had cut
his daughter off without the traditional shilling, but even so, some
hundreds a year must have been theirs. What then did the poverty of
Alathea suggest? That some constant drain must be going on all the time.
Could the scapegrace still be a gambler, and that could account for it?
This seemed the most probable explanation.

Then all over me there rushed a mad worship for my little love. Her
splendid unselfishness, her noble self-sacrifice, her dignity, her
serenity. I could have kissed the ground under her feet.

I made Burton spend untold time telephoning to the Embassy, and then to
Versailles to Colonel Harcourt--would he not dine with me? He was sorry
he was engaged but he would lunch the next day. Then when the long
evening was in front of me alone--I could hardly bear it. And, driven to
desperation at last, when Burton was undressing me, I said to him:

"Did you ever know anything of the Hartlefords, Burton--Bulteel is the
family name?"

"Can't say as I did personally, Sir Nicholas," he answered, "but of
course, when I was a young boy taking my first fourth-footman's place,
before I came to your father, Sir Guy, at Her Grace of Wiltshire's, I
could not help hearing of the scandal about the cheating at cards. The
whole nobility and gentry was put to about it, and nothing else was
talked of at dinner."

"Try and tell me what you remember of the story."

So Burton held forth in his own way for a quarter of an hour. There had
been no possible doubt of the crime, it was the week after the Derby,
and Bulteel had lost heavily it was said. He was caught red-handed and
got off abroad that night,