sense of honor, I wandered out, hoping that in the fresh air I might re-
collect my thoughts and solve the problem that perplexed me. I had
enough to do in sundry small orders for my voyage, and commissions for
Bolding, to occupy me some hours. And, this business done, I found
myself moving westward; mechanically, as it were, I had come to a kind
of half-and-half resolution to call upon Lady Ellinor and question her,
carelessly and incidentally, both about Gower and the new servant
admitted to the household.

Thus I found myself in Regent Street, when a carriage, borne by post-
horses, whirled rapidly over the pavement, scattering to the right and
left all humbler equipages, and hurried, as if on an errand of life and
death, up the broad thoroughfare leading into Portland Place. But
rapidly as the wheels dashed by, I had seen distinctly the face of Fanny
Trevanion in the carriage; and that face wore a strange expression,
which seemed to me to speak of anxiety and grief; and by her side--Was
not that the woman I had seen with Peacock? I did not see the face of
the woman, but I thought I recognized the cloak, the bonnet, and
peculiar turn of the head. If I could be mistaken there, I was not
mistaken at least as to the servant on the seat behind. Looking back at
a butcher's boy who had just escaped being run over, and was revenging
himself by all the imprecations the Dirae of London slang could suggest,
the face of Mr. Peacock was exposed in full to my gaze.

My first impulse, on recovering my surprise, was to spring after the
carriage; in the haste of that impulse, I cried "Stop!" But the
carriage was out of sight in a moment, and my word was lost in air.
Full of presentiments of some evil,--I knew not what,--I then altered my
course, and stopped not till I found myself, panting and out of breath,
in St. James's Square--at the door of Trevanion's house--in the hall.