On Friday, on Saturday, on Sunday, Lady Charlotte waited for her brother Rowsley, until it was a diminished satisfaction that she had held her ground and baffled his mighty will to subdue her.  She did not sleep for thinking of him on the Sunday night.  Toward morning a fit of hazy horrors, which others would have deemed imaginings, drove her from her bed to sit and brood over Rowsley in a chair.  What if it was a case of heart with him too?  Heart disease had been in the family.  A man like Rowsley, still feeling the world before him, as a man of his energies and aptitudes, her humour added in the tide of his anxieties, had a right to feel, would not fall upon resignation like a woman.

She was at the physician’s door at eight o’clock.  Dr. Rewkes reported reassuringly; it was a simple disturbance in Lord Ormont’s condition of health, and he conveyed just enough of disturbance to send the impetuous lady knocking and ringing at her brother’s door upon the hour of nine.

The announcement of Lady Charlotte’s early visit informed my lord that Dr. Rewkes had done the spiriting required of him.  He descended to the library and passed under scrutiny.

‘You don’t look ill, Rowsley,’ she said, reluctantly in the sound.

’I am the better for seeing you here, Charlotte.  Shall I order breakfast for you?  I am alone.’

‘I know you are.  I’ve eaten.  Rewkes tells me you’ve not lost appetite.’

‘Have I the appearance of a man who has lost anything?’ Prouder man, and heartier and ruddier, could not be seen, she thought.

‘You’re winning the country to right you; that I know.’

‘I don’t ask it.’

‘The country wants your services.’

’I have heard some talk of it.  That lout comes to a knowledge of his wants too late.  If they promoted and offered me the command in India to-morrow—­’My lord struck the arm of his chair.  ’I live at Steignton henceforth; my wife is at a seaside place eastward.  She left the jewel-case when on her journey through London for safety; she is a particularly careful person, forethoughtful.  I take her down to Steignton two days after her return.  We entertain there in the autumn.  You come?’

‘I don’t.  I prefer decent society.’

‘You are in her house now, ma’am.’

’If I have to meet the person, you mean, I shall be civil.  The society you’ve given her, I won’t meet.’

’You will have to greet the Countess of Ormont if you care to meet your brother.’

’Part, then, on the best terms we can.  I say this, the woman who keeps you from serving your country, she ‘s your country’s enemy.’

’Hear my answer.  The lady who is my wife has had to suffer for what you call my country’s treatment of me.  It ’s a choice between my country and her.  I give her the rest of my time.’

‘That’s dotage.’

‘Fire away your epithets.’