feeling that something must be done, and no one knowing what.
At lunch, the only allusion to the situation had been Harbinger's
inquiry:

"When does Miltoun return?"

He had wired, it seemed, to say that he was motoring down that night.

"The sooner the better," Sir William murmured: "we've still a
fortnight."

But all had felt from the tone in which he spoke these words, how
serious was the position in the eyes of that experienced campaigner.

What with the collapse of the war scare, and this canard about Mrs.
Noel, there was indeed cause for alarm.

The afternoon post brought a letter from Lord Valleys marked Express.

Lady Valleys opened it with a slight grimace, which deepened as she
read. Her handsome, florid face wore an expression of sadness seldom
seen there. There was, in fact, more than a touch of dignity in her
reception of the unpalatable news.

"Eustace declares his intention of marrying this Mrs. Noel"--so ran
her husband's letter--"I know, unfortunately, of no way in which I can
prevent him. If you can discover legitimate means of dissuasion, it
would be well to use them. My dear, it's the very devil."

It was the very devil! For, if Miltoun had already made up his mind to
marry her, without knowledge of the malicious rumour, what would not
be his determination now? And the woman of the world rose up in Lady
Valleys. This marriage must not come off. It was contrary to almost
every instinct of one who was practical not only by character, but
by habit of life and training. Her warm and full-blooded nature had
a sneaking sympathy with love and pleasure, and had she not been
practical, she might have found this side of her a serious drawback
to the main tenor of a life so much in view of the public eye. Her
consciousness of this danger in her own case made her extremely alive
to the risks of an undesirable connection--especially if it were a
marriage--to any public man. At the same time the mother-heart in her
was stirred. Eustace had never been so deep in her affection as Bertie,
still he was her first-born; and in face of news which meant that he
was lost to her--for this must indeed be 'the marriage of two minds' (or
whatever that quotation was)--she felt strangely jealous of a woman, who
had won her son's love, when she herself had never won it. The aching of
this jealousy gave her face for a moment almost a spiritual expression,
then passed away into impatience. Why should he marry her? Things