What Mr. Sedley muttered to himself as he ascended the stairs, in what spirit he canvassed the character of Mr. Augustus Bramleigh, the reader need not know; and it is fully as well that our story does not require it should be recorded. One only remark, however, may be preserved; it was said as he reached the door of his room, and apparently in a sort of summing up of all that had occurred to him,--"These creatures, with their cant about conscience, don't seem to know that this mischievous folly would unsettle half the estates in the kingdom; and there 's not a man in England would know what he was born to, till he had got his father in a madhouse."
In a handsome apartment of the Hôtel Bristol at Paris, sat Lord and Lady Culduff at tea. They were in deep mourning; and though they were perfectly alone, the room was splendidly lighted--branches of candles figuring on every console, and the glass lustre that hung from the ceiling a blaze of waxlights.
If Lord Culduff looked older and more careworn than we have lately seem him, Marion seemed in higher bloom and beauty, and the haughty, half-defiant air which had, in a measure, spoiled the charm of her girlhood, sat with a sort of dignity on her features as a woman.
Not a word was spoken on either side; and from her look of intense preoccupation, as she sat gazing on the broad hem of her handkerchief, it was evident that her thoughts were wandering far away from the place she was in. As they sat thus, the door was noiselessly opened by a servant in deep black, who, in a very subdued voice, said, "The Duke de Castro, your Excellency."
"I don 't receive," was the cold reply, and the man withdrew. In about a quarter of an hour after, he reappeared, and in the same stealthy tone said, "Madame la Comtesse de Renneville begs she may have the honor--"
"Lady Culduff does not receive," said his Lordship, sternly.
"The Countess has been very kind; she has been here to inquire after me several times."
"She is a woman of intense curiosity," said he, slowly.
"And you 'd have said perfectly wrong, madam. The woman is a political _intriguante_ who only lives to unravel mysteries; and the one that is now puzzling her is too much for her good manners."