France," continued, his effort being to fix the epithet to frivolous
allusions, from which her ingenuity rescued it honourably.

Had she ever been in love? He asked her the question. She stabbed him
with so straightforward an affirmative that he could not conceal the
wound.

"Have I not been married?" she said.

He began to experience the fretful craving to see the antecedents of the
torturing woman spread out before him. He conceived a passion for her
girlhood. He begged for portraits of her as a girl. She showed him the
portrait of Harry Lovell in a locket. He held the locket between his
fingers. Dead Harry was kept very warm. Could brains ever touch her
emotions as bravery had done?

"Where are the brains I boast of?" he groaned, in the midst of these
sensational extravagances.

The lull of action was soon to be disturbed. A letter was brought to
him.

He opened it and read--

"Mr. Edward Blancove,--When you rode by me under Fairly Park, I did
not know you. I can give you a medical certificate that since then
I have been in the doctor's hands. I know you now. I call upon you
to meet me, with what weapons you like best, to prove that you are
not a midnight assassin. The place shall be where you choose to
appoint. If you decline I will make you publicly acknowledge what