‘By all means,’ said I; and the captain proposed to leave the squire at his hotel, in the event of my failing to join him in the city.

‘But don’t fail, if you can help it,’ he urged me; ’for things somehow, my dear Harry, appear to me to look like the compass when the needle gives signs of atmospheric disturbance.  My only reason for saying so is common observation.  You can judge for yourself that he is glad to have you with him.’

I told the captain I was equally glad; for, in fact, my grandfather’s quietness and apparently friendly disposition tempted me to petition for a dower for the princess at once, so that I might be in the position to offer Prince Ernest on his arrival a distinct alternative; supposing—­ it was still but a supposition—­Ottilia should empower me.  Incessant dialogues of perpetually shifting tendencies passed between Ottilia and me in my brain—­now dark, now mildly fair, now very wild, on one side at least.  Never, except by downright force of will, could I draw from the phantom of her one purely irrational outcry, so deeply-rooted was the knowledge of her nature and mind; and when I did force it, I was no gainer:  a puppet stood in her place—­the vision of Ottilia melted out in threads of vapour.

‘And yet she has come to me; she has braved everything to come.’  I might say that, to liken her to the women who break rules and read duties by their own light, but I could not cheat my knowledge of her.  Mrs. Waddy met me in the hall of my father’s house, as usual, pressing, I regretted to see, one hand to her side.  ‘Her heart,’ she said, ’was easily set pitty-pat now.’  She had been, by her master’s orders, examined by two of the chief physicians of the kingdom, ‘baronets both.’  They advised total rest.  As far as I could apprehend, their baronetcies and doings in high regions had been of more comfort than their prescriptions.

‘What I am I must be,’ she said, meekly; ’and I cannot quit his service till he’s abroad again, or I drop.  He has promised me a monument.  I don’t want it; but it shows his kindness.’

A letter from Heriot informed me that the affair between Edbury and me was settled:  he could not comprehend how.

‘What is this new Jury of Honour?  Who are the jurymen?’ he asked, and affected wit.

I thanked him for a thrashing in a curt reply.

My father had left the house early in the morning.  Mrs. Waddy believed that he meant to dine that evening at the season’s farewell dinner of the Trump-Trick Club:  ’Leastways, Tollingby has orders to lay out his gentlemen’s-dinners’ evening-suit.  Yesterday afternoon he flew down to Chippenden, and was home late.  To-day he’s in the City, or one of the squares.  Lady Edbury’s—­ah! detained in town with the jaundice or toothache.  He said he was sending to France for a dentist:  or was it Germany, for some lady’s eyes?  I am sure I don’t know.  Well or ill, so long as you’re anything to him, he will abound.  Pocket and purse!  You know him by this time, Mr. Harry.  Oh, my heart!’