to London, and slept at his town-house.

They breakfasted together the next morning on friendly terms. Half an
hour afterward there was an explosion; uncle and nephews were scattered
fragments: and if Cecil was the first to return to cohesion with his lord
and chief, it was, he protested energetically, common policy in a man in
his position to do so: all that he looked for being a decent pension and
a share in the use of the town-house. Old Nevil, he related, began
cross-examining him and entangling him with the cunning of the deuce, in
my lord's presence, and having got him to make an admission, old Nevil
flung it at the baron, and even crossed him and stood before him when he
was walking out of the room. A furious wrangle took place. Nevil and
the baron gave it to one another unmercifully. The end of it was that
all three flew apart, for Cecil confessed to having a temper, and in
contempt of him for the admission wrung out of him, Lord Avonley had
pricked it. My lord went down to Steynham, Beauchamp to Holdesbury, and
Captain Baskelett to his quarters; whence in a few days he repaired
penitently to my lord--the most placable of men when a full submission
was offered to him.

Beauchamp did nothing of the kind. He wrote a letter to Steynham in the
form of an ultimatum.

This egregious letter was handed to Rosamund for a proof of her darling's
lunacy. She in conversation with Stukely Culbrett unhesitatingly accused
Cecil of plotting his cousin's ruin.

Mr. Culbrett thought it possible that Cecil had been a little more than
humorous in the part he had played in the dispute, and spoke to him.