n nothing of the mode in which
Lady Glencora was to have been carried off after her party, nor
whither she was to have been taken. But now,--now she must arrange it
herself, and have a scheme of her own, or else the thing must fail
absolutely. Even she was almost reluctant to speak out plainly to her
nephew on such a subject. What if he should be false to her, and tell
of her? But when a woman has made such schemes, nothing distresses
her so sadly as their failure. She would risk all rather than that Mr
Palliser should keep his wife.

"I will try and help you," she said at last, speaking hoarsely,
almost in a whisper, "if you have courage to make an attempt
yourself."

"Courage!" said he "What is it you think I am afraid of? Mr Palliser?
I'd fight him,--or all the Pallisers, one after another, if it would
do any good."

"Fighting! There's no fighting wanted, as you know well enough. Men
don't fight nowadays. Look here! If you can get her to call here some
day,--say on Thursday, at three o'clock,--I will be here to receive
her; and instead of going back into her carriage, you can have a cab
for her somewhere near. She can come, as it were, to make a morning
call."

"A cab!"

"Yes; a cab won't kill her, and it is less easily followed than a
carriage."

"And where shall we go?"

"There is a train to Southampton at four, and the boat sails for
Jersey at half-past six; you will be in Jersey the next morning,
and there is a boat goes on to St Malo, almost at once. You can go
direct from one boat to the other,--that is, if she has strength and
courage." After that, who will say that Lady Monk was not a devoted
aunt?

"That would do excellently well," said the enraptured Burgo.

"She will have difficulty in getting away from me, out of the house.
Of course I shall say nothing about it, and shall know nothing about
it. She had better tell her coachman to drive somewhere to pick
some one up, and to return;--out somewhere to Tyburnia, or down to
Pimlico. Then she can leave me, and go out on foot, to where you
have the cab. She can tell the hall-porter that she will walk to her
carriage. Do you understand?" Burgo declared that he did understand.

"You must call on her, and make your way in, and see her, and arrange
all this. It must be a Thursday, because of the boats." Then she
made inquiry about his money, and took from him the notes which he
had, promising to return them, with something added, on the Thursday
mor