At the end of the first fortnight McKay’s relations and friends in England had almost abandoned hope.  This was what Mr. Faulks told Mrs. Wilders, who called every day two or three times, always in the deepest distress.

“Poor boy! poor boy!” she said, wringing her hands.  “To be cut off like this!  It is too terrible!  And nothing—­you are sure nothing can be done to save him?”

“Lord Essendine is making the most strenuous efforts; so are we.  Even Sir Humphrey Fothergill has been most kind; and the War Minister has repeatedly telegraphed to Lord Raglan to leave no stone unturned.”

“And all without effect?  It is most sad!” She would have feigned the same excessive grief with the Essendine lawyers, to whom she also paid several visits, but the senior partner’s cold eye and cynical smile checked her heroics.

“You will not be the loser by poor McKay’s removal,” he said, with brutal frankness, one day when she had rather overdone her part.

“As if I thought of that!” she replied, with supreme indignation.

“It is impossible for you not to think of it, my dear madam.  It would not be human nature.  Why shouldn’t you?  Mr. McKay was no relation.”

“He was my dear dead husband’s devoted friend.  Nursed him after his wound—­”

“I remember to have heard that, and indeed everything that is good, of Mr. McKay.  I feel sure he would have made an excellent Earl of Essendine; more’s the pity.”

“I trust my son, if he inherits, will worthily maintain the credit of the house.”

“So do I, my dear madam,” said old Mr. Burt, with a bow that made the speech a less doubtful compliment.

“When will it be settled?  Why do they hesitate?  Why delay?” she said to herself passionately, as she went homewards to Thistle Grove.  Her friend Mr. Hobson was there, waiting for her; and she repeated the question with a fierce anxiety that proved how closely it concerned her.

“How impatient you grow!  Like every woman.  Everything must be done at once.”

“I am not safe yet.  I begin to doubt.”

“Can’t you trust me?  I have assured you it will end as you wish.  When have I disappointed you, Lady Lydstone?”

She started at the sound of this name, once familiar, but surrounded now by memories at once painful and terrible.

“It is the rule in your English peerage that when a son becomes a great peer, and the mother is only a commoner, to give her one of the titles.  Your Queen does it by prerogative.”

“I might have been Lady Lydstone by right, if I had waited,” she said slowly.

“And you repent it?  Bah! it is too late.  Be satisfied.  You will be rich, a great lady, respected—­”

She made a gesture of dissent.

“Yes; respected.  Great ladies always are.  You can marry again—­whom you please; me, for instance—­”

Again the gesture:  dissent mixed with unmistakable disgust.