'I'll bet you the fellow's luck has gone,' said Potts. 'He 's no new
hand and you don't think him so either, Fleet. I've looked into the
fellow's eye and seen a leery old badger at the bottom of it. Talks vile
stuff. However, 'perhaps I didn't drive out on that sweltering Carlsruhe
road for nothing.'

He screwed a look at the earl, who sent Abrane to carry a message and
heard the story Potts had to tell.

'Henrietta Fakenham! no mistake about her; driving out from a pothouse;
man beside her, military man; might be a German. And, if you please,
quite unacquainted with your humble servant, though we were as close as
you to me. Something went wrong in that pothouse. Red eyes. There had
been a scene, one could swear. Behind the lady another carriage, and her
maid. Never saw the girl before, and sets to bowing and smirking at me,
as if I was the-fellow of all others! Comical. I made sure they were
bound for this place. They were on the Strasburg road. No sign of
them?'

'You speak to me?' said Fleetwood.

Potts muttered. He had put his foot into it.

'You have a bad habit of speaking to yourself,' Fleetwood remarked, and
left him. He suffered from the rustics he had to deal with among his
class, and it was not needed that he should thunder at them to make his
wrath felt.

Livia swam in, asking: 'What has come to Russett? He passed me in one of