Dorothy?" I asked earnestly.

"Why should you think that I have been ill?" she replied, her fingers
going back to the spinet. "It is a mistake, sir. Dr. James has given
me near a gross of his infamous powders, and is now exploiting another
cure. I have been resting from the fatigues of London, while you have
been wearing yourself out."

"Dr. James himself told me your condition was serious," I said.

"Of course," said she; "the worse the disease, the more remarkable the
cure, the more sought after the physician. When will you get over your
provincial simplicity?"

I saw there was nothing to be got out of her while in this baffling
humour. I wondered what devil impelled a woman to write one way and talk
another. In her note to me she had confessed her illness. The words
I had formed to say to her were tied on my tongue. But on the whole I
congratulated myself. She knew how to step better than I, and there were
many awkward things between us of late best not spoken of. But she kept
me standing an unconscionable time without a word, which on the whole
was cruelty, while she played over some of Dibdin's ballads.

"Are you in a hurry, sir," she asked at length, turning on me with
a smile, "are you in a hurry to join my Lord March or his Grace of
Grafton? And have you writ Captain Clapsaddle and your Whig friends at
home of your new intimacies, of Mr. Fox and my Lord Sandwich?"

I was dumb.

"Yes, you must be wishing to get away," she continued cruelly, picking
up the newspaper. "I had forgotten this notice. When I saw it this
morning I thought of you, and despaired of a glimpse of you to-day."
(Reading.) "At the Three Hats, Islington, this day, the 10th of May,
will be played a grand match at that ancient and much renowned manly
diversion called Double Stick by a sect of chosen young men at that
exercise from different parts of the West Country, for two guineas given
free; those who break the most heads to bear away the prize. Before the
above-mentioned diversion begins, Mr. Sampson and his young German will
display alternately on one, two, and three horses, various surprising
and curious feats of famous horsemanship in like manner as at the Grand
Jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon. Admittance one shilling each person.'
Before you leave, Mr. Richard," she continued, with her eyes still on
the sheet, "I should like to talk over one or two little matters."

"Dolly--!"

"Will you sit, sir?"

I sat down uneasily, expecti