CHAPTER III.

MR. FORTESCUE'S PROPOSAL.


"Where am I?"

I feel as if I were in a strait-jacket. One of my arms is immovable, my
head is bandaged, and when I try to turn I suffer excruciating pain.

"Where am I?"

"Oh, you have wakened up!" says somebody with a foreign accent, and a dark
face bends over me. The light is dim and my sight weak, and but for his
grizzled mustache I might have taken the speaker for a woman, his ears
being adorned with large gold rings.

"Where are you? You are in the house of Señor Fortescue."

"And the mare?"

"The mare broke her wicked head against the park wall, and she has gone to
the kennels to be eaten by the dogs."

"Already? How long is it since?"

"It was the day before yesterday zat it happened."

"God bless me! I must have been insensible ever since. That means