back with the spring; and
some ugly rumors began to creep about. They were checked, however, by
the death of Lord Blackwater, which occurred within a year of his
daughter's departure; by the monstrous debts he left behind him; and by
the sale of the contents of the famous apartment, matters, all of them,
sufficiently ugly or scandalous in themselves to keep the tongues of
fame busy. Lady Blackwater left Paris, and when she reappeared, it was
in Rome as the Comtesse d'Estrees, the wife of yet another old man,
whose health obliged them to winter in the south and to spend the summer
in yachting. Her <i>salon</i> in Rome under Pio Nono became a great
rendezvous for English and Americans, attracted by the historic names
and titles that M. d'Estrees' connections among the Black nobility, his
wealth, and his interest in several of the Catholic banking-houses of
Rome and Naples enabled his wife to command.

Colonel Wensleydale did not appear. Madame d'Estrees let it be
understood that her step-daughter was of a difficult temper, and now
spent most of her time in Ireland. Her own daughter, her "darling
Kitty," was being educated in Paris by the Soeurs Blanches, and she
pined for the day when the "little sweet" should join her, ready to
spread her wings in the great world. But mothers must not be impatient,
Kitty must have all the advantages that befitted her rank; and to what
better hands could the most anxious mother intrust her than to those
charming, aristocratic, accomplished nuns of the Soeurs Blanches?

Then one January day M. d'Estrees drove out to San Paolo fuori le Mura,
and caught a blast from the snowy Sabines coming back. In three days he
was dead, and his well-provided widow had snatched the bulk of his
fortune from the hands of his needy and embittered kindred.

Within six months of his death she had bought a house in St. James's
Place, and her London career had begun.

* * * * *

"It is here that we come in," said Lord Grosville, when, with more
digressions and more plainness of speech with regard to his quondam
sister-in-law than can be here reproduced, he had brought his story to
this point. "Blackwater--the old ruffian--when he was dying had a moment
of remorse. He wrote to my wife and asked her to look after his girls,
'For God's sake, Lina, see if you can help Alice--Wensleydale's a
perfect brute.' That was the first light we had on the situation, for
Adelina had long befor