t Lady Maulevrier's country house. The money so delivered
up might possibly have formed part of his lordship's private fortune;
but, in the absence of any knowledge as to its origin, his grandson, the
present Lord Maulevrier, preferred to deliver it up to the authorities
of the India House, to be dealt with as they might think fit.

The old earl made no further attempt to assert himself. He seemed
content to remain in his own rooms as of old, to potter about the
garden, where his solitude was as complete as that of a hermit's cell.
The only moan be made was for James Steadman, whose services he missed
sorely. Lord Hartfield replaced that devoted servant by a clever
Austrian valet, a new importation from Vienna, who understood very
little English, a trained attendant upon mental invalids, and who was
quite capable of dealing with old Lord Maulevrier.

Lord Hartfield went a step farther; and within a week of those two
funerals of servant and mistress, which cast a gloom over the peaceful
valley of Grasmere, he brought down a famous mad-doctor to diagnose his
lordship's case. There was but little risk in so doing, he argued with
his friend, and it was their duty so to do. If the old man should assert
himself to the doctor as Lord Maulevrier, the declaration would pass as
a symptom of his lunacy. But it happened that the physician arrived at
Fellside on one of Lord Maulevrier's bad days, and the patient never
emerged from the feeblest phase of imbecility.

'Brain quite gone,' pronounced the doctor, 'bodily health very poor.
Take him to the South of France for the winter--Hyeres, or any quiet
place. He can't last long.'

To Hyeres the old man was taken, with Mrs. Steadman as nurse, and the
Austrian valet as body-servant and keeper. Mary, for whom, in his
brighter hours he showed a warm affection, went with him under her
husband's wing.

Lord Hartfield rented a chateau on the slope of an olive-clad hill,
where he and his young wife, whose health was somewhat delicate at this
time, spent a winter in peaceful seclusion; while Lesbia and her brother
travelled together in Italy. The old man's strength improved in that
lovely climate. He lived to see the roses and orange blossoms of the
early spring, and died in his arm-chair suddenly, without a pang, while
Mary sat at his feet reading to him: a quiet end of an evil and troubled
life. And now he whom the world had known as Lord Maulevrier was verily
the earl, and could hear h