ing her waiting--they had no choice but to follow
the mistress of the house.

Arrived in the next room, both Turlington and Launce resumed their
places among the guests with the same object in view. As a necessary
result of the scene in the boudoir, each had his own special
remonstrance to address to Sir Joseph. Even here, Launce was beforehand
with Turlington. He was the first to get possession of Sir Joseph's
private ear. His complaint took the form of a protest against
Turlington's jealousy, and an appeal for a reconsideration of the
sentence which excluded him from Muswell Hill. Watching them from
a distance, Turlington's suspicious eye detected the appearance of
something unduly confidential in the colloquy between the two. Under
cover of the company, he stole behind them and listened.

The great Bootmann had arrived at that part of the Nightmare Sonata in
which musical sound, produced principally with the left hand, is made to
describe, beyond all possibility of mistake, the rising of the moon in a
country church-yard and a dance of Vampires round a maiden's grave. Sir
Joseph, having no chance against the Vampires in a whisper, was obliged
to raise his voice to make himself audible in answering and comforting
Launce. "I sincerely sympathize with you," Turlington heard him say;
"and Natalie feels about it as I do. But Richard is an obstacle in our
way. We must look to the consequences, my dear boy, supposing Richard
found us out." He nodded kindly to his nephew; and, declining to pursue
the subject, moved away to another part of the room.

Turlington's jealous distrust, wrought to the highest pitch of
irritability for weeks past, instantly associated the words he had just
heard with the words spoken by Launce in the boudoir, which had reminded
him that he was not married to Natalie yet. Was there treachery at work
under the surface? and was the object to persuade weak Sir Joseph to
reconsider his daughter's contemplated marriage in a sense favorable
to Launce? Turlington's blind suspicion overleaped at a bound all the
manifest improbabilities which forbade such a conclusion as this. After
an instant's consideration with himself, he decided on keeping his own
counsel, and on putting Sir Joseph's good faith then and there to a test
which he could rely on as certain to take Natalie's father by surprise.

"Graybrooke!"

Sir Joseph started at the sight of his future son-in-law's face.

"My dear Richard, you are lo