It is final.  She is at liberty, in the meantime, to draw on my bankers for the provision she may need, at the rate of five hundred pounds per annum.”  He spoke of “the lady now bearing my name.”  He was within an inch of saying “dishonouring.”  I swear I heard the “dis,” and he caught himself up.  He “again declined any attempt towards reconciliation.”  It could “only be founded on evasion of the truth to be made patent on the day of trial.”  Half his talk was lawyers’ lingo.  The fellow’s teeth looked like frost.  If Lot’s wife had a brother, his name’s Warwick.  How Diana Merion, who could have had the pick of the best of us, ever came to marry a fellow like that, passes my comprehension, queer creatures as women are!  He can ride; that’s about all he can do.  I told him Mrs. Warwick had no thought of reconciliation.  “Then, Sir Lukin, you will perceive that we have no standpoint for a discussion.”  I told him the point was, for a man of honour not to drag his wife before the public, as he had no case to stand on—­less than nothing.  You should have seen the fellow’s face.  He shot a sneer up to his eyelids, and flung his head back.  So I said, “Good-day.”  He marches me to the door, “with his compliments to Lady Dunstane.”  I could have floored him for that.  Bless my soul, what fellows the world is made of, when here’s a man, calling himself a gentleman, who, just because he gets in a rage with his wife for one thing or another—­and past all competition the handsomest woman of her day, and the cleverest, the nicest, the best of the whole boiling—­has her out for a public horsewhipping, and sets all the idiots of the kingdom against her!  I tried to reason with him.  He made as if he were going to sleep standing.’

Sir Lukin gratified Lady Dunstane by his honest championship of Diana.  And now, in his altered mood (the thrice indebted rogue was just cloudily conscious of a desire to propitiate his dear wife by serving her friend), he began a crusade against the scandal-newspapers, going with an Irish military comrade straight to the editorial offices, and leaving his card and a warning that the chastisement for print of the name of the lady in their columns would be personal and condign.  Captain Carew Mahony, albeit unacquainted with Mrs. Warwick, had espoused her cause.  She was a woman, she was an Irishwoman, she was a beautiful woman.  She had, therefore, three positive claims on him as a soldier and a man.  Other Irish gentlemen, animated by the same swelling degrees, were awaking to the intimation that they might be wanted.  Some words were dropped here and there by General Lord Larrian:  he regretted his age and infirmities.  A goodly regiment for a bodyguard might have been selected to protect her steps in the public streets; when it was bruited that the General had sent her a present of his great Newfoundland dog, Leander, to attend on her and impose a required respect.  But as it chanced that her address was unknown to the volunteer constabulary, they had to assuage their ardour by thinking the dog luckier than they.