"Well, ma'am," continued Marriott, "as soon as I was in possession of this precious speech, I carried it and a letter of Sir Philip Baddely's gentleman vouching it to my lady. My lady was thunderstruck, and so vexed to have been, as she said, a dupe, that she sent for my lord directly, and insisted upon his giving up Mr. Champfort. My lord demurred, because my lady spoke so high, and said _insist_. He would have done it, I'm satisfied, of his own accord with the greatest pleasure, if my lady had not, as it were, commanded it. But he answered at last, 'My Lady Delacour, I'm not a man to be governed by a wife--I shall keep or part with my own servants in my own house, according to my own pleasure;' and saying so, he left the room. I never saw my lady so angry as she was at this refusal of my lord to part with him. The house was quite in a state of distraction for some days. I never would sit down to the same table, ma'am, with Mr. Champfort, nor speak to him, nor look at him, and parties ran high above and below stairs. And at last my lady, who had been getting better, took to her bed again with a nervous fever, which brought her almost to death's door; she having been so much weakened before by the quack medicines and convulsions, and all her sufferings in secret. She would not see my lord on no account, and Champfort persuaded him her illness was pretence, to bring him to her purpose; which was the more readily believed, because nobody was ever let into my lady's bedchamber but myself. All this time she never mentioned your name, ma'am; but once, when I was sitting by her bedside, as she was asleep, she started suddenly, and cried out, 'Oh, my dearest Belinda! are you come back to me?'--She awakened herself with the start; and raising herself quite up in her bed, she pulled back the curtains, and looked all round the room. I'm sure she expected to see you; and when she found it was a dream, she gave a heavy sigh, and sank down upon her pillow. I then could not forbear to speak, and this time my lady was greatly touched when I mentioned your name:--she shed tears, ma'am; and you know it is not a little thing that can draw tears from my lady. But when I said something about sending for you, she answered, she was sure you would not return to her, and that she would never condescend to ask a favour in vain, even from you. Then I replied that I was sure you loved her still, and as well as ever: and that the proof of that was, that Mrs. Luttridge and Mrs. Freke together, by all their wiles, could not draw you over to their party at Harrowgate, and that you had affronted Mrs. Freke by defending her ladyship. My lady was all surprise at this, and eagerly asked how I came to know it. Now, ma'am, I had it all by a post letter from Mrs. Luttridge's maid, who is my cousin, and knows every thing that's going on. My lady from this moment forward could scarce rest an instant without wishing for you, and fretting for you as I knew by her manner. One day my lord met me on the stairs as I was coming down from my poor lady's room, and he asked me how she was, and why she did not send for a physician. 'The best physician, my lord, she could send for,' said I, 'would be Miss Portman; for she'll never be well till that good young lady comes back again, in my humble opinion.'