rs and gave me another of his
unpleasantly penetrating looks. What was I to do? I was not strong
enough to quarrel with him. Conceive my situation, if you please. Is
language adequate to describe it? I think not.

"The objects of my visit," he went on, quite irrepressibly, "are
numbered on my fingers. They are two. First, I come to bear my
testimony, with profound sorrow, to the lamentable disagreements
between Sir Percival and Lady Glyde. I am Sir Percival's oldest
friend--I am related to Lady Glyde by marriage--I am an eye-witness of
all that has happened at Blackwater Park. In those three capacities I
speak with authority, with confidence, with honourable regret. Sir, I
inform you, as the head of Lady Glyde's family, that Miss Halcombe has
exaggerated nothing in the letter which she wrote to your address. I
affirm that the remedy which that admirable lady has proposed is the
only remedy that will spare you the horrors of public scandal. A
temporary separation between husband and wife is the one peaceable
solution of this difficulty. Part them for the present, and when all
causes of irritation are removed, I, who have now the honour of
addressing you--I will undertake to bring Sir Percival to reason. Lady
Glyde is innocent, Lady Glyde is injured, but--follow my thought
here!--she is, on that very account (I say it with shame), the cause
of irritation while she remains under her husband's roof. No other
house can receive her with propriety but yours. I invite you to open
it."

Cool. Here was a matrimonial hailstorm pouring in the South of
England, and I was invited, by a man with fever in every fold of his
coat, to come out from the North of England and take my share of the
pelting. I tried to put the point forcibly, just as I have put it
here. The Count deliberately lowered one of his horrid fingers, kept
the other up, and went on--rode over me, as it were, without even the
common coach-manlike attention of crying "Hi!" before he knocked me
down.

"Follow my thought once more, if you please," he resumed. "My first
object you have heard. My second object in coming to this house is to
do what Miss Halcombe's illness has prevented her from doing for
herself. My large experience is consulted on all difficult matters at
Blackwater Park, and my friendly advice was requested on the
interesting subject of your letter to Miss Halcombe. I understood at
once--for my sympathies are your sympathies--why yo