He felt that any attempt at an explanation was impossible.  It was not for him to precipitate Lady Maulevrier’s end by prying into her secrets.  Granted that shame and dishonour of some kind were involved in the existence of that strange old man, he, Lord Hartfield, must endure his portion in that shame—­must be content to leave the dark riddle unsolved.

He resigned himself to this state of things, and tried to forget the cloud that hung over the house of Haselden; but the sense of a mystery, a fatal family secret, which must come to light sooner or later—­since all such secrets are known at last—­known, sifted, and bandied about from lip to lip, and published in a thousand different newspapers, and cried aloud in the streets—­the sense of such a secret, the dread of such a revelation weighed upon him heavily.

Maulevrier, the restless, was off to Argyleshire for the grouse shooting as soon as he had deposited Lady Lesbia comfortably at Fellside.

‘I should only be in your way if I stopped,’ he said, ’for you and Molly have hardly got over the honeymoon stage yet, though you put on the airs of Darby and Joan.  I shall be back in a week or ten days.’

’In Lady Maulevrier’s state of health I don’t think you ought to stay away very long,’ said Hartfield.

’Poor Lady Maulevrier!  She never cared much for me, don’t you know.  But I suppose it would seem unkind if I were to be out of the way when the end comes.  The end!  Good heavens! how coolly I talk of it; and a year ago I thought she was as immortal as Fairfield yonder.’

He went away, his spirits dashed by that awful thought of death, and Lord and Lady Hartfield had the house to themselves, since Lesbia hardly counted.  She seldom left her own rooms, except to sit with her grandmother for an hour.  She lay on her sofa—­or sat in a low arm-chair by the window, reading Keats or Shelley—­or only dreaming—­dreaming over the brief golden time of her life, with its fond delusions, its false brightness.  Mr. Horton went to see her every day—­felt the feeble little pulse which seemed hardly to have force enough to beat—­urged her to struggle against apathy and inertia, to walk a little, to go for a long drive every day, to live in the open air—­to which instructions she paid not the slightest attention.  The desire for life was gone.  Disappointed in her ambition, betrayed in her love, humiliated, duped, degraded—­a social failure.  What had she to live for?  She felt as if it would have been a good thing, quite the best thing that could happen, if she could turn her face to the wall and die.  All that past season, its triumphs, its pleasures, its varieties, was like a garish dream, a horror to look back upon, hateful to remember.

In vain did Mary and Hartfield urge Lesbia to join in their simple pleasures, their walks and rides and drives, and boating excursions.  She always refused.

‘You know I never cared much for roaming about these everlasting hills,’ she told Mary.  ’I never had your passion for Lakeland.  It is very good of you to wish to have me, but it is quite impossible.  I have hardly strength enough for a little walk in the garden.’