CHAPTER XXXVIII.

DISCOVERIES 388

CHAPTER XXXIX.

LUCY'S DISCOVERY 397

CHAPTER XL.

THE DOWAGER'S EXPLANATION 409

CHAPTER XLI.

SEVERED 417

CHAPTER XLII.

LADY RANDOLPH WINDS UP HER AFFAIRS 427

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE LITTLE HOUSE IN MAYFAIR 437

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE SIEGE OF LONDON 448

CHAPTER XLV.

THE BALL 458

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE BALL CONTINUED 469

CHAPTER XLVII.

NEXT MORNING 480

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE LAST BLOW 491

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE EXPERIENCES OF BICE 502

CHAPTER L.

THE EVE OF SORROW 514

CHAPTER LI.

THE LAST CRISIS 522

CHAPTER LII.

THE END 538

CHAPTER I.

HOW SIR TOM BECAME A GREAT PERSONAGE.

Sir Thomas Randolph had lived a somewhat stormy life during the earliest
half of his career. He had gone through what the French called a
_jeunesse orageuse_; nothing very bad had ever been laid to his charge;
but he had been adventurous, unsettled, a roamer about the world even
after the period at which youthful extravagances cease. Nobody ever knew
when or where he might appear. He set off to the farthest parts of the
earth at a day's notice, sometimes on pretext of sport, sometimes on no
pretext at all, and re-appeared again as unexpectedly as he had gone
away. He had run out his fortune by these and other extravagances, and
was at forty in one of the most uncomfortable positions in which a man
can find himself, with the external appearance of large estates and an
established and important position, but in reality with scarcely any
income at all, just enough to satisf