Two or three days after the riot at the House of Lords, Captain Cadurcis burst into his cousin’s room with a triumphant countenance.  ‘Well, Plantagenet!’ he exclaimed, ’I have done it; I have seen her alone, and I have put you as right as possible.  Nothing can be better.’

‘Tell me, my dear fellow,’ said Lord Cadurcis, eagerly.

‘Well, you know, I have called half-a-dozen times,’ said George, ’but either Lady Annabel was there, or they were not at home, or something always occurred to prevent any private communication.  But I met her to-day with her aunt; I joined them immediately, and kept with them the whole morning.  I am sorry to say she, I mean Venetia, is devilish ill; she is, indeed.  However, her aunt now is quite on your side, and very kind, I can tell you that.  I put her right at first, and she has fought our battle bravely.  Well, they stopped to call somewhere, and Venetia was so unwell that she would not get out, and I was left alone in the carriage with her.  Time was precious, and I opened at once.  I told her how wretched you were, and that the only thing that made you miserable was about her, because you were afraid she would think you so profligate, and all that.  I went through it all; told her the exact truth, which, indeed, she had before heard; but now I assured her, on my honour, that it was exactly what happened; and she said she did not doubt it, and could not, from some conversation which you had together the day we were all at Hampton Court, and that she felt that nothing could have been premeditated, and fully believed that everything had occurred as I said; and, however she deplored it, she felt the same for you as ever, and prayed for your happiness.  Then she told me what misery the danger of Lord Monteagle had occasioned her; that she thought his death must have been the forerunner of her own; but the moment he was declared out of danger seemed the happiest hour of her life.  I told her you were going to leave England, and asked her whether she had any message for you; and she said, “Tell him he is the same to me that he has always been.”  So, when her aunt returned, I jumped out and ran on to you at once.’

‘You are the best fellow that ever lived, George,’ said Lord Cadurcis; ‘and now the world may go to the devil!’

This message from Venetia acted upon Lord Cadurcis like a charm.  It instantly cleared his mind.  He shut himself up in his house for a week, and wrote a farewell to England, perhaps the most masterly effusion of his powerful spirit.  It abounded in passages of overwhelming passion, and almost Satanic sarcasm.  Its composition entirely relieved his long-brooding brain.  It contained, moreover, a veiled address to Venetia, delicate, tender, and irresistibly affecting.  He appended also to the publication, the verses he had previously addressed to her.