CHAPTER III.

COELEBS, quid agam?*--HORACE.

* "What shall I do, a bachelor?"

IN a room at Fenton's Hotel sat Lord Vargrave and Caroline Lady
Doltimore,--two months after the marriage of the latter.

"Doltimore has positively fixed, then, to go abroad on your return from
Cornwall?"

"Positively,--to Paris. You can join us at Christmas, I trust?"

"I have no doubt of it; and before then I hope that I shall have arranged
certain public matters, which at present harass and absorb me even more
than my private affairs."

"You have managed to obtain terms with Mr. Douce, and to delay the
repayment of your debt to him?"

"Yes, I hope so, till I touch Miss Cameron's income; which will be mine,
I trust, by the time she is eighteen."

"You mean the forfeit money of thirty thousand pounds?"

"Not I; I mean what I said!"