"What, my dear Sir Thorn!" exclaimed the count, "your leg still gives
you trouble?"

"Oh, a great deal!" replied the honorable gentleman, with a very marked
English accent,--"a great deal since this morning. The doctor thinks
there must be something the matter with the bone."

At the same time, obeying the tendency which we all have to display our
ailments, he slightly drew up his trousers, so that the bandages became
visible which he wore around his leg. Count Ville-Handry looked at it
with pity; then, forgetting that he had introduced Daniel already the
night before at the opera, he presented him once more; and, when the
ceremony was over, he said to Sir Thorn,--

"Upon my word, I am almost ashamed to appear so early; but I knew you
expected company to-night."

"Oh, only a few persons!"

"And I desired to see you for a few moments alone."

A strange grimace represented the only smile of which the honorable
gentleman was capable. He made it twice, and then said, caressing his
primly-cut whiskers,--

"They have told Miss Sarah that you are here, my dear count; and I heard
her tell Mrs. Brian that she was nearly ready. I cannot imagine how she
can spend so much time at her toilet."

They were thus chatting away before the fireplace, Sir Thorn stretched
out in an easy-chair, and the count leaning against the mantlepiece,
while Daniel had withdrawn into the embrasure of a window which looked
upon the court-yard and the garden behind the house. There, his brow
pressed against the cool window-panes, he was meditating. He could not
understand this wound of M. Elgin's.

"Is it possible that his fall was an intentional fall?" he thought, "or
did he really break his leg? If he did so, that fainting-fit might have
been natural, and not prearranged; but"--

He was just plunging into these doubts and speculations, when the noise
of a carriage entering the court-yard, aroused him from his thoughts.

He looked out. A _coupe_ had driven up to the back porch of the house. A
lady stepped out; and he was on the point of uttering a cry of surprise,
for he thought he recognized Miss Sarah in that woman. But could that be
so? He was unwilling to believe it, when she suddenly raised her head in
order to speak to the coachman, and the light from the lamps fell full
upon her face.

There was no doubt now on his mind. It was Miss Brandon.

She flew up the steps, and entered the house. He heard distinctly the
heavy door close