arranged that we shall go straight from here to
Fellside. No one can plague you there with that disguised impertinence
called sympathy. You can give all your thoughts to the ordeal before
you, and be ready to meet your accusers. Fortunately, you have no Burke
against you.'

'Fellside? You think of going to Fellside?'

'Yes. You know how fond I am of that place. I little thought when you
settled it upon me--a cottage in Westmoreland with fifty acres of garden
and meadow--so utterly insignificant--that I should ever like it better
than any of your places.'

'A charming retreat in summer; but we have never wintered there? What
put it into your head to go there at such a season as this? Why, I
daresay the snow is on the tops of the hills already.'

'It is the only place I know where you will not be watched and talked
about,' replied Lady Maulevrier. 'You will be out of the eye of the
world. I should think that consideration would weigh more with you than
two or three degrees of the thermometer.'

'I detest cold,' said the Earl, 'and in my weak health----'

'We will take care of you,' answered her ladyship; and in the discussion
which followed she bore herself so firmly that her husband was fain to
give way.

How could a disgraced and ruined man, broken in health and spirits,
contest the mere details of life with a high-spirited woman ten years
his junior?

The Earl wanted to go to London, and remain there at least a week, but
this her ladyship strenuously opposed. He must see his lawyer, he urged;
there were steps to be taken which could be taken only under legal
advice--counsel to be retained. If this lying invention of Satan were
really destined to take the form of a public trial, he must be prepared
to fight his foes on their own ground.

'You can make all your preparations at Fellside,' answered his wife,
resolutely. 'I have seen Messrs. Rigby and Rider, and your own
particular ally, Rigby, will go to you at Fellside whenever you want
him.'

'That is not like my being on the spot,' said his lordship, nervously,
evidently much disconcerted by her ladyship's firmness, but too feeble
in mind and body for a prolonged contest.

'I ought to be on the spot. I am not without influence; I have friends,
men in power.'

'Surely you are not going to appeal to friendship in order to vindicate
your honour. These charges are true or false. If they are false your own
manhood, your own rectitude, can face them and trampl