his lips. He reseated himself, and began to read.




CHAPTER XI.

Randal--with many misgivings at Lord L'Estrange's tone, in which he was
at no loss to detect a latent irony--proceeded to Norwood. He found
Riccabocca exceedingly cold and distant; but he soon brought that sage to
communicate the suspicions which Lord L'Estrange had instilled into his
mind, and these Randal was as speedily enabled to dispel. He accounted
at once for his visits to Levy and Peschiera. Naturally he had sought
Levy, an acquaintance of his own,--nay, of Audley Egerton's,--but whom he
knew to be professionally employed by the count. He had succeeded in
extracting from the baron Peschiera's suspicious change of lodgment from
Mivart's Hotel to the purlieus of Leicester Square; had called there on
the count, forced an entrance, openly accused him of abstracting
Violante; high words had passed between them,--even a challenge. Randal
produced a note from a military friend of his, whom he had sent to the
count an hour after quitting the hotel. This note stated that
arrangements were made for a meeting near Lord's Cricket Ground, at seven
o'clock the next morning. Randal then submitted to Riccabocca another
formal memorandum from the same warlike friend, to the purport that
Randal and himself had repaired to the ground, and no count had been
forthcoming. It must be owned that Randal had taken all suitable
precautions to clear himself. Such a man is not to blame for want of
invention, if he be sometimes doomed to fail.

"I, then, much alarmed," continued Randal, "hastened to Baron Levy, who