That letter was dated from Lord Fleetwood's Kentish mansion, Esslemont,
the tenth of the month. He must have quitted London for Esslemont, for
change of scene, for air, the moment after the news of Henrietta's
marriage. Carinthia Jane received the summons without transmission of
the letter from her uncle on the morning of the twelfth. It was a
peremptory summons.

Unfortunately, Admiral Fakenham, a real knight and chevalier of those
past times, would not let her mount the downs to have her farewell view
of the big ships unaccompanied by him; and partly and largely in pure
chivalry, no doubt; but her young idea of England's grandeur, as shown in
her great vessels of war, thrilled him, too, and restored his youthful
enthusiasm for his noble profession or made it effervesce. However it
was, he rode beside her and rejoiced to hear the young girl's talk of her
father as a captain of one of England's thunderers, and of the cruelty of
that Admiralty to him: at which Admiral Baldwin laughed, but had not the
heart to disagree with her, for he could belabour the Admiralty in
season, cause or no cause. Altogether he much enjoyed the ride,
notwithstanding intimations of the approach of 'his visitor,' as he
called his attacks of gout.

Riding home, however, the couple passed through a heavy rainfall, and the
next day, when he was to drive with the bride to Lekkatts, gout, the
fiercest he had ever known, chained him fast to his bed. Such are the
petty accidents affecting circumstances. They are the instruments of
Destiny.

There he lay, protesting that the ceremony could not possibly be for the
fourteenth, because Countess Livia had, he now remembered, written of her