eemed the slightest danger of such a
meeting. She knew that Lesbia had loved her fortuneless suitor; and she
did not know that the wound was cured, even by a season in the
little-great world of Cannes. Now that she, the ruler of that
household, was a helpless captive in her own apartments, she felt that
Lesbia at Fellside would be her own mistress, and hemmed round with the
dangers that beset richly-dowered beauty and inexperienced youth.

John Hammond might be playing a very deep game, perhaps assisted by
Maulevrier. He might ostensibly leave Fellside before Lesbia's return,
yet lurk in the neighbourhood, and contrive to meet her every day. If
Maulevrier encouraged this folly, they might be married and over the
border, before her ladyship--fettered, impotent as she was--could
interfere.

Lady Maulevrier felt that Georgie Kirkbank was her strong rock. So long
as Lesbia was under that astute veteran's wing there could be no danger.
In that embodied essence of worldliness and diplomacy, there was an
ever-present defence from all temptations that spring from romance and
youthful impulses. It was a bitter thing, perhaps, to steep a young and
pure soul in such an atmosphere, to harden a fresh young nature in the
fiery crucible of fashionable life; but Lady Maulevrier believed that
the end would sanctify the means. Lesbia, once married to a worthy man,
such a man as Lord Hartfield, for instance, would soon rise to a higher
level than that Belgravian swamp over which the malarian vapours of
falsehood, and slander, and self-seeking, and prurient imaginings hang
dense and thick. She would rise to the loftier table-land of that really
great world which governs and admonishes the ruck of mankind by examples
of noble deeds and noble thoughts; the world of statesmen, and soldiers,
and thinkers, and reformers; the salt wherewithal society is salted.

But while Lesbia was treading the tortuous mazes of fashion, it was well
for her to be guided and guarded by such an old campaigner as Lady
Kirkbank, a woman who, in the language of her friends, 'knew the ropes.'

Lesbia's last letter had been to the effect that she was to go back to
London with the Kirkbanks directly after Easter, and that directly they
arrived she would set off with her maid for Fellside, to spend a week or
a fortnight with her dearest grandmother, before going back to Arlington
Street for the May campaign.

'And then, dearest, I hope you will make up your mind to