e off. I'm sure, if Lesbia plays her cards properly, he will look over
this--this--little escapade.'

Maulevrier contemplated the worldly old face with infinite scorn.

'Does she look like a girl who will play her cards in your fashion?' he
asked, pointing to his sister, whose white face upon the pillow seemed
like a mask cut out of marble. 'Upon my soul, Lady Kirkbank, I consider
my sister's elopement with this Spanish adventurer, with whom she was
over head and ears in love, a far more respectable act than her
engagement to Smithson, for whom she cared not a straw.'

'Well, I hope if you so approve of her conduct you will help her to pay
her dressmaker, and the rest of them,' retorted Lady Kirkbank. 'She has
been plunging rather deeply, I believe, under the impression that
Smithson would pay all her bills when she was married. Your grandmother
may not quite like the budget.'

'I will do all I can for her,' answered Maulevrier. 'I would do a great
deal to save her from the degradation to which your teaching has brought
her.'

Lady Kirkbank looked at him for a moment or so with reproachful eyes,
and then shrugged her shoulders contemptuously.

'If I ever expected gratitude from people I might feel the
injustice--the insolence--of your last remark,' she said; 'but as I
never do expect gratitude, I am not disappointed in this case. And now I
think if there is a cabin which I can have to myself I should like to
retire to it,' she added. 'My cares are thrown away here.'

There was a cabin at Lady Kirkbank's disposal. It had been already
appropriated by Rilboche, and smelt of cognac; but Rilboche resigned her
berth to her mistress, and laid herself meekly on the floor for the rest
of the voyage.

They were in Cowes Roads at eight o'clock next morning, and Lord
Hartfield went on shore for a doctor, whom he brought back before nine,
and who pronounced Lady Lesbia to be in a very weak and prostrate
condition, and forbade her being moved within the next two days. Happily
Lord Hartfield had borrowed the _Philomel_ and her crew from a friend
who had given him _carte blanche_ as to the use he made of her, and who
freely left her at his disposal so long as he and his party should need
the accommodation. Lesbia could nowhere be better off than on the yacht,
where she was away from the gossip and tittle-tattle of the town.

The roadstead was quiet enough now. All the racing yachts had melted
away like a dream, and most of th