therto
been reserved for summer occupation, or for perhaps two or three weeks
at Easter, when the spring was exceptionally fine. The sudden
determination to spend the coming winter in the house near Grasmere was
considered a curious freak of Lady Maulevrier's, and she was constrained
to explain her motives to her friends.

'His lordship is out of health,' she said, 'and wants perfect rest and
retirement. Now, Fellside is the only place we have in which he is
likely to get perfect rest. Anywhere else we should have to entertain.
Fellside is out of the world. There is no one to be entertained.'

'Except your neighbour, Wordsworth. I suppose you see him sometimes?'

'Dear simple-minded old soul, he gives nobody any trouble,' said her
ladyship.

'But is not Westmoreland very cold in winter?' asked her friend.

Lady Maulevrier smiled benignly, as at an inoffensive ignorance.

'So sheltered,' she murmured. 'We are at the base of the Fell. Loughrigg
rises up like a cyclopean wall between us and the wind.'

'But when the wind is in the either direction?'

'We have Nabb Scar. You do not know how we are girdled and defended by
hills.'

'Very pleasant,' agreed the friend; 'but for my own part I would rather
winter in the south.'

Those terrible rumours which had first come upon the world of London
last June, had been growing darker and more defined ever since, but
still Lady Maulevrier made believe to ignore them; and she acted her
part of unconsciousness with such consummate skill that nobody in her
circle could be sure where the acting began and where the ignorance left
off. The astute Lord Denyer declared that she was a wonderful woman, and
knew more about the real state of the case than anybody else.

Meanwhile it was said by those who were supposed to be well-informed
that a mass of evidence was accumulating against Lord Maulevrier. The
India House, it was rumoured, was busy with the secret investigation of
his case, prior to that public inquiry which was to come on during the
next session. His private fortune would be made answerable for his
misdemeanours--his life, said the alarmists, might pay the penalty of
his treason. On all sides it was agreed that the case against Lord
Maulevrier was black as Erebus; and still Lady Maulevrier looked society
in the face with an unshaken courage, and was ready with smiles and
gracious words for all comers.

But now came a harder trial, which was to receive the man who had