the third day, he was
several miles from the house when a heavy rain came on. Lord Vargrave
was constitutionally hardy, and not having been much exposed to
visitations of the weather of late years, was not practically aware that
when a man is past forty, he cannot endure with impunity all that falls
innocuously on the elasticity of twenty-six. He did not, therefore,
heed the rain that drenched him to the skin, and neglected to change
his dress till he had finished reading some letters and newspapers which
awaited his return at Lisle Court. The consequence of this imprudence
was, that the next morning when he woke, Lord Vargrave found himself,
for almost the first time in his life, seriously ill. His head ached
violently, cold shiverings shook his frame like an ague; the very
strength of the constitution on which the fever had begun to fasten
itself augmented its danger. Lumley--the last man in the world to think
of the possibility of dying--fought up against his own sensations,
ordered his post-horses, as his visit of survey was now over, and
scarcely even alluded to his indisposition. About an hour before he
set off, his letters arrived; one of these informed him that Caroline,
accompanied by Evelyn, had already arrived in Paris; the other was from
Colonel Legard, respectfully resigning his office, on the ground of
an accession of fortune by the sudden death of the admiral, and his
intention to spend the ensuing year in a Continental excursion. This
last letter occasioned Vargrave considerable alarm; he had always felt
a deep jealousy of the handsome ex-guardsman, and he at once suspected
that Legard was about to repair to Paris as his rival. He sighed, and
looked round the spacious apartment, and gazed on the wide prospects of
grove and turf that extended from the window, and said to himself, "Is
another to snatch these from my grasp?" His impatience to visit Mrs.
Leslie, to gain ascendency over Lady Vargrave, to repair to Paris,
to scheme, to manoeuvre, to triumph, accelerated the progress of the
disease that was now burning in his veins; and the hand that he held out
to Mr. Hobbs, as he stepped into his carriage, almost scorched the cold,
plump, moist fingers of the surveyor. Before six o'clock in the evening
Lord Vargrave confessed reluctantly to himself that he was too ill to
proceed much farther. "Howard," said he then, breaking a silence that
had lasted some hours, "don't be alarmed; I feel that I am about to hav