‘I was assured by Madame la Comtesse that I should see you to-day,’ the French lady said as she swam to meet him; ‘it is a real pleasure’:  and pressing his hand she continued, ’but I fear you will be disappointed of seeing my sister.  She would rashly try your climate at its worst period.  Believe me, I do not join in decrying it, except on her account:  I could have forewarned her of an English Winter and early Spring.  You know her impetuosity; suddenly she decided on accepting the invitation of Madame la Comtesse; and though I have no fears of her health, she is at present a victim of the inclement weather.’

‘You have seen her, madame?’ said Beauchamp.  So well had the clever lady played the dupe that he forgot there was a part for him to play.  Even the acquiescence of Rosamund in the title of countess bewildered him.

’Madame d’Auffray has been sitting for an hour with Madame de Rouaillout,’ said Rosamund.

He spoke of Roland’s coming.

‘Ah?’ said Madame d’Auffray, and turned to Rosamund:  ’you have determined to surprise us:  then you will have a gathering of the whole family in your hospitable house, Madame la Comtesse!

’If M. la Marquis will do it that honour, madame!

‘My brother is in London,’ Madame d’Auffray said to Beauchamp.

The shattering blow was merited by one who could not rejoice that he had acted rightly.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE EARL OF ROMFREY AND THE COUNTESS

An extraordinary telegraphic message, followed by a still more extraordinary letter the next morning, from Rosamund Culling, all but interdicted the immediate occupation of his house in town to Everard, now Earl of Romfrey.  She begged him briefly not to come until after the funeral, and proposed to give him good reasons for her request at their meeting.  ‘I repeat, I pledge myself to satisfy you on this point,’ she wrote.  Her tone was that of one of your heroic women of history refusing to surrender a fortress.

Everard’s wrath was ever of a complexion that could suffer postponements without his having to fear an abatement of it.  He had no business to transact in London, and he had much at the Castle, so he yielded himself up to his new sensations, which are not commonly the portion of gentlemen of his years.  He anticipated that Nevil would at least come down to the funeral, but there was no appearance of him, nor a word to excuse his absence.  Cecil was his only supporter.  They walked together between the double ranks of bare polls of the tenantry and peasantry, resembling in a fashion old Froissart engravings the earl used to dote on in his boyhood, representing bodies of manacled citizens, whose humbled heads looked like nuts to be cracked, outside the gates of captured French towns, awaiting the disposition of their conqueror, with his banner above him and prancing knights around.  That was a glory of the past.  He had no successor.  The thought was chilling; the solitariness of childlessness to an aged man, chief of a most ancient and martial House, and proud of his blood, gave him the statue’s outlook on a desert, and made him feel that he was no more than a whirl of the dust, settling to the dust.