esided thus, and no one saw him but the domestics who waited upon
him. But rumours got abroad as to his conduct, and people through the
county declared that Earl Lovel was a maniac. Still his property was
in his own control, and he did what it listed him to do.

As soon as men knew that he was in the land, claim after claim was
made upon him for money due on behalf of his wife, and loudest among
the claimants was Thomas Thwaite, the tailor. He was loudest and
fiercest among the claimants, but was loud and fierce not in enmity
to his old friend the Countess, but with a firm resolve to make the
lord pay the only price of his wickedness which could be exacted from
him. And if the Earl could be made to pay the claims against him
which were made by his wife's creditors, then would the law, so far,
have decided that the woman was his wife. No answer was made to any
letter addressed to the Earl, and no one calling at the Grange could
obtain speech or even sight of the noble owner. The lord's steward at
the Grange referred all comers to the lord's attorneys in London, and
the lord's attorneys simply repeated the allegation that the lady was
not the lord's wife. At last there came tidings that an inquiry was
to be made as to the state of the lord's health and the state of the
lord's mind, on behalf of Frederic Lovel, the distant heir to the
title. Let that question of the lord's marriage with Josephine Murray
go as it might, Frederic Lovel, who had never seen his far-away
cousin, must be the future earl. Of that there was no doubt;--and new
inquiries were to be made. But it might well be that the interest of
the young heir would be more deeply involved in the marriage question
than in other matters concerning the family. Lovel Grange and the few
mountain farms attached to the Cumberland estate must become his, let
the frantic Earl do what damage he might to those who bore his name;
but the bulk of the property, the wealth of the Lovels, the great
riches which had enabled this mighty lord to live as a beast of prey
among his kind, were at his own disposal. He had one child certainly,
the Lady Anna, who would inherit it all were the father to die
intestate, and were the marriage proved. The young heir and those
near to him altogether disbelieved the marriage,--as was natural.
They had never seen her who now called herself the Countess, but
who for some years after her child was born had called herself Mrs.
Murray,--who had been di