e, and asserted with vehemence his
right to wed with whom he pleased, and declared that no power on earth
should prevent him marrying the lady just driven ignominiously from the
house if she could be brought to accept the offer of his hand and
fortune! Mrs. Rushton fell into passionate hysterics; and her son, having
first summoned her maid, withdrew to ruminate on Mademoiselle de
Tourville's concluding sentence, which troubled him far more that what he
deemed the injustice of his mother.

When Mrs. Rushton, by the aid of water, pungent essences, and the relief
which even an hour of time seldom fails to yield in such cases, had
partially recovered her equanimity, she determined, after careful
consideration of the best course of action, to consult a solicitor of
eminence, well acquainted with her late husband, upon the matter. She had
a dim notion that the Alien Act, if it could be put in motion, might rid
her of Mademoiselle de Tourville and her friends. Thus resolving, and
ever scrupulous as to appearances, she carefully smoothed her ruffled
plumage, changed her disordered dress, and directed the carriage, which
had been dismissed, to be again brought round to the door. "Mary," she
added a few moments afterwards, "bring me my jewel-case--the small one:
you will find it in Made--in that French person's dressing-room."

Mary Austin reappeared in answer to the violent ringing of her impatient
lady's bell, and stated that the jewel-case could nowhere be found in
Mademoiselle's dressing-room. "Her clothes, everything belonging to her,
had been taken out of the wardrobe, and carried away, and perhaps that
also in mistake no doubt."

"Nonsense, woman!" replied Mrs. Rushton. "I left it not long ago on her
toilet-glass. I intended to show her a purchase I had made, and not
finding her, left it as I tell you."

Another search was made with the same ill-success. Mary Austin afterwards
said that when she returned to her mistress the second time, to say that
the jewel-case was certainly gone, an expression of satisfaction instead
of anger, it seemed to her, glanced across Mrs. Rushton's face, who
immediately left the room, and in a few minutes afterwards was driven
off in the carriage.

About an hour after her departure I called in Harley Street for Arthur
Rushton, with whom I had engaged to go this evening to the theatre to
witness Mrs. Siddons's Lady Macbeth, which neither of us had yet seen. I
found him in a state of calmed