outwardly she had never appeared to lack
it greatly), she did not hesitate to speak of herself as an Indian, her
country as a good country, and her people as a noble if dispossessed
race; all the more so if she thought reference to her nationality and
past was being rather conspicuously avoided. She had asked General
Armour for an interview with her husband's solicitor. This was granted.
When she met the solicitor, she asked him to send no newspaper to her
husband containing any reference to herself, nor yet to mention her in
his letters.

She had never directly received a line from him but once, and that was
after she had come to know the truth about his marriage with her. She
could read in the conventional sentences, made simple as for a child,
the strained politeness, and his absolute silence as to whether or not a
child had been born to them, the utter absence of affection for her.
She had also induced General Armour and his wife to give her husband's
solicitor no information regarding the birth of the child. There was
thus apparently no more inducement for him to hurry back to England than
there was when he had sent her off on his mission of retaliation, which
had been such an ignominious failure. For the humiliation of his family
had been short-lived, the affront to Lady Haldwell nothing at all.
The Armours had not been human if they had failed to enjoy their
daughter-in-law's success. Although they never, perhaps, would quite
recover the disappointment concerning Lady Agnes Martling, the result
was so much better than they in their cheerfulest moments dared hope
for, that they appeared genuinely content.

To their grandchild they were devotedly attached. Marion was his
faithful slave and admirer, so much so that Captain Vidall, who now and
then was permitted to see the child, declared himself jealous. He and
Marion were to be married soon. The wedding had been delayed owing to
his enforced absence abroad. Mrs. Edward Lambert, once Mrs. Townley,
shyly regretted in Lali's presence that the child, or one as sweet,
was not hers. Her husband evidently shared her opinion, from the
extraordinary notice he took of it when his wife was not present. Not
that Richard Joseph Armour, Jun., was always en evidence, but when asked
for by his faithful friends and admirers he was amiably produced.

Meanwhile, Frank Armour across the sea was engaged with many things. His
business concerns had not prospered prodigiously, chiefly b