kinsman by marriage, and he had sworn
to honour her and to care for her as a son; and as a son he would urge
her to confide in him, to unburden her conscience of any dark secret,
and to make the crooked things straight, before she was called away.

While he was forecasting this interview, meeting imaginary objections,
arguing points which might have to be argued, a servant came out to him
with an ochre envelope on a little silver tray--that unpleasant-looking
envelope which seems always a presage of trouble, great or small.

'Lord Maulevrier, Albany, to Lord Hartfield, Fellside, Grasmere.

'For God's sake come to me at once. I am in great trouble; not on my own
account, but about a relation.'

A relation--except his grandmother and his two sisters Maulevrier had no
relations for whom he cared a straw. This message must have relation to
Lesbia. Was she ill--dying, the victim of some fatal accident, runaway
horses, boat upset, train smashed? There was something; and Maulevrier
appealed to his nearest and best friend. There was no withstanding such
an appeal. It must be answered, and immediately.

Lord Hartfield went into the library and wrote his reply message, which
consisted of six words.

'Going to you by first train.'

The next train left Windermere at three. There was just time to get a
fresh horse put in the dogcart, and a Gladstone bag packed.

CHAPTER XLI.

PRIVILEGED INFORMATION.

Lord Hartfield did not arrive at Euston Square until near eleven o'clock
at night. A hansom deposited him at the entrance to the Albany just as
the clock of St. James's Church chimed the hour. He found only
Maulevrier's valet. His lordship had waited indoors all the evening, and
had only gone out a quarter of an hour ago. He had gone to the
Cerberus, and begged that Lord Hartfield would be kind enough to follow
him there.

Lord Hartfield was not fond of the Cerberus, and indeed deemed that
lively place of rendezvous a very dangerous sphere for his friend
Maulevrier; but in the face of Maulevrier's telegram there was no time
to be lost, so he walked across Piccadilly and down St. James's Street
to the fashionable little club, where the men were dropping in after the
theatres and dinners, and where sheafs of bank notes were being
exchanged for those various coloured counters which represented divers
values, from the respectable 'pony' to the modest 'chip.'

Maulevrier was in the first room Hartfield looked into, stan