find?"

"Oh they must be safe; it's all in that: her being able to depend on them
to keep to the terms of the bargain and never have moments of rising--as
even the ugliest woman will now and then (say when she's in
love)--superior to themselves."

I turned it over. "Then if they can't inspire passions the poor things
mayn't even at least feel them?"

"She distinctly deprecates it. That's why such a man as you may be after
all a complication."

I continued to brood. "You're very sure Miss Dadd's ailment isn't an
affection that, being smothered, has struck in?" My joke, however,
wasn't well timed, for I afterwards learned that the unfortunate lady's
state had been, even while I spoke, such as to forbid all hope. The
worst symptoms had appeared; she was destined not to recover; and a week
later I heard from Mrs. Munden that she would in fact "gurgle" no more.




CHAPTER II


All this had been for Lady Beldonald an agitation so great that access to
her apartment was denied for a time even to her sister-in-law. It was
much more out of the question of course that she should unveil her face
to a person of my special business with it; so that the question of the