all over the place, some of it awfully
wild, but all of it wind in our sails."

"I suppose it was that wind then that blew me round there to see the
thing in its new light," Lady Grace said. "But I couldn't stay--for
tears!"

"Ah," Hugh insisted on his side for comfort, "we'll crow loudest yet!
And don't meanwhile, just _don't_, those splendid strange eyes of the
fellow seem consciously to plead? The women, bless them, adore him,
cling to him, and there's talk of a 'Ladies' League of Protest'--all of
which keeps up the pitch."

"Poor Amy and I are a ladies' league," the girl joylessly joked--"as we
now take in the 'Journal' regardless of expense."

"Oh then you practically _have_ it all--since," Hugh, added after
a brief hesitation, "I suppose Lord Theign himself doesn't languish
uninformed."

"At far-off Salsomaggiore--by the papers? No doubt indeed he isn't
spared even the worst," said Lady Grace--"and no doubt too it's a drag
on his cure."

Her companion seemed struck with her lack of assurance. "Then you
don't--if I may ask--hear from him?"

"I? Never a word."

"He doesn't write?" Hugh allowed himself to insist.

"He doesn't write. And I don't write either."

"And Lady Sandgate?" Hugh once more ventured.

"Doesn't _she_ write?"

"Doesn't _she_ hear?" said the young man, treating the other form of the
question as a shade evasive.

"I've asked her not to tell me," his friend replied--"that is if he
simply holds out."

"So that as she doesn't tell you"--Hugh was clear for the inference--"he
of course does hold out." To which he added almost accusingly while his
eyes searched her: "But your case is really bad."

She confessed to it after a moment, but as if vaguely enjoying it. "My
case is really bad."

He had a vividness of impatience and contrition. 197

"And it's I who--all too blunderingly!--have made it so?"

"I've made it so myself," she said with a high head-shake, "and you, on
the contrary--!" But here she checked her emphasis.

"Ah, I've so _wanted_, through our horrid silence, to help you!" And he
pressed to get more at the truth. "You've so quite fatally displeased
him?"

"To the last point--as I tell you. But it's not to that I refer," she
explained; "it's to the ground of complaint I've given _you_." And then
as this but left him blank, "It's time--it was at once time--that you
should know," she pursued; "and yet if it's hard for me to speak, as you
see, it was impossible for me