“I know now,” he said.  “There was a private accident at the station here last night; your lordship must mean that.  A gentleman got out of a carriage before it stopped, and fell between the rail and the platform.  His name was Kirton.  I saw it on his portmanteau.”

“Lord Kirton?”

“No, my lord.  Captain Kirton.”

“Was he seriously hurt?”

“Well, it was thought so.  Mr. Hillary feared the leg would have to come off.  He was carried to Hartledon.”

Very much relieved, Lord Hartledon jumped into a fly and was driven home. 
The countess-dowager embraced him and fell into hysterics.

The crafty old dowager, whose displayed emotion was as genuine as she was!  She had sent for this son of hers, hoping he might be a decoy-duck to draw Hartledon home again, for she was losing heart; and the accident, which she had not bargained for, was a very god-send to her.

“Why don’t you word your telegrams more clearly, Hedges?” asked Lord Hartledon of his butler.

“It wasn’t me worded it at all, my lord.  Lady Kirton went to the station herself.  She informed me she had sent it in my name.”

“Has Hillary told you privately what the surgeons think of the case?”

“Better of it than they did at first, my lord.  They are trying to save the leg.”

This Captain Kirton was really the best of the Kirton bunch:  a quiet, unassuming young man, somewhat delicate in health.  Lord Hartledon was grieved for his accident, and helped to nurse him with the best heart in the world.

And now what devilry (there were people in Calne who called it nothing less) the old countess-dowager set afloat to secure her ends I am unable to tell you.  She was a perfectly unscrupulous woman—­poverty had rendered her wits keen; and her captured lion was only feebly struggling to escape from the net.  He was to blame also.  Thrown again into the society of Maude and her beauty, Val basked in its sunshine, and went drifting down the stream, never heeding where the current led him.  One day the countess-dowager put it upon his honour—­he must marry Maude.  He might have held out longer but for a letter that came from some friend of the dowager’s opportunely located at Cannes; a letter that spoke of the approaching marriage of Miss Ashton to Colonel Barnaby, eldest son of a wealthy old baronet, who was sojourning there with his mother.  No doubt was implied or expressed; the marriage was set forth as an assured fact.

“And I believe you meant to wait for her?” said the countess-dowager, as she put the letter into his hand, with a little laugh.  “You are free now for my darling Maude.”

“This may not be true,” observed Lord Hartledon, with compressed lips.  “Every one knows what this sort of gossip is worth.”

“I happen to know that it is true,” spoke Lady Kirton, in a whisper.  “I have known of it for some time past, but would not vex you with it.”