ready. The old lord burst out of an ambush on his wife and her supposed
paramour; the lady was imprisoned in her rescuer's arms, and my friend
retired on tiptoe, which was, I incline to think, the best thing he could
do. Our morals were abominable. Lady Edbury would never see Roy-
Richmond after that, nor the old lord neither. He doubled the sum he had
intended to leave him, though. I heard that he married a second young
wife. Roy, I believe, ended by marrying a great heiress, and reforming.
He was an eloquent fellow, and stood like a general in full uniform,
cocked hat and feathers; most amusing fellow at table; beat a Frenchman
for anecdote.'

I spared Colonel Heddon the revelation of my relationship to his hero,
thanking his garrulity for interrupting me.

How I pitied him when I drove past the gates of the main route to
Innsbruck! For I was bound homeward: I should soon see England, green
cloudy England, the white cliffs, the meadows, the heaths! And I thanked
the colonel again in my heart for having done something to reconcile me
to the idea of that strange father of mine.

A banner-like stream of morning-coloured smoke rolled North-eastward as I
entered London, and I drove to Temple's chambers. He was in Court,
engaged in a case as junior to his father. Temple had become that
radiant human creature, a working man, then? I walked slowly to the
Court, and saw him there, hardly recognising him in his wig. All that he
had to do was to prompt his father in a case of collision at sea; the
barque Priscilla had run foul of a merchant brig, near the mouth of the
Thames, and though I did not expect it on hearing the vessel's name, it
proved to be no other than the barque Priscilla of Captain Jasper Welsh.
Soon after I had shaken Temple's hand, I was going through the same