reason or other had a strong prejudice against the Evening News.
None of the papers, however, contained even the slightest allusion
to Chichester, and Lord Arthur felt that the attempt must have
failed. It was a terrible blow to him, and for a time he was quite
unnerved. Herr Winckelkopf, whom he went to see the next day was
full of elaborate apologies, and offered to supply him with another
clock free of charge, or with a case of nitro-glycerine bombs at
cost price. But he had lost all faith in explosives, and Herr
Winckelkopf himself acknowledged that everything is so adulterated
nowadays, that even dynamite can hardly be got in a pure condition.
The little German, however, while admitting that something must have
gone wrong with the machinery, was not without hope that the clock
might still go off, and instanced the case of a barometer that he
had once sent to the military Governor at Odessa, which, though
timed to explode in ten days, had not done so for something like
three months. It was quite true that when it did go off, it merely
succeeded in blowing a housemaid to atoms, the Governor having gone
out of town six weeks before, but at least it showed that dynamite,
as a destructive force, was, when under the control of machinery, a
powerful, though a somewhat unpunctual agent. Lord Arthur was a
little consoled by this reflection, but even here he was destined to
disappointment, for two days afterwards, as he was going upstairs,
the Duchess called him into her boudoir, and showed him a letter she
had just received from the Deanery.

'Jane writes charming letters,' said the Duchess; 'you must really
read her last. It is quite as good as the novels Mudie sends us.'

Lord Arthur seized the letter from her hand. It ran as follows:-