‘It became me to step to her defence:  she was meek,’ said Skepsey.  ’She had a great opinion of the efficacy of quotations from Scripture; she did not recriminate.  I was able to release her and the young man she protected, on condition of my going upstairs to give a display of my proficiency.  I had assured them, that the poor fellows who stood against me were not a proper match.  And of course, they jeered, but they had the evidence, on the pavement.  So I went up with them.  I was heavily oppressed, I wanted relief, I put on the gloves.  He was a bigger man; they laughed at the little one.  I told them, it depended upon a knowledge of first principles, and the power to apply them.  I will not boast, my lady:  my junior by ten years, the man went down; he went down a second time; and the men seemed surprised; I told them, it was nothing but first principles put into action.  I mention the incident, for the extreme relief it afforded me at the close of a dark day.’

‘So you cured your grief!’ said Lady Grace; and Skepsey made way for his master.

Victor’s festival-lights were kindled, beholding her; cressets on the window-sill, lamps inside.

‘Am I so welcome?’ There was a pull of emotion at her smile.  ’What with your little factotum and you, we are flattered to perdition when we come here.  He has been proposing, by suggestion, like a Court-physician, the putting on of his boxing-gloves, for the consolation of the widowed:—­meant most kindly! and it’s a thousand pities women haven’t their padded gloves.’

’Oh! but our boxing-gloves can do mischief enough.  You have something to say, I see.’

‘How do you see?’

‘Tusk, tush.’

The silly ring of her voice and the pathless tattle changed; she talked to suit her laden look.  ’You hit it.  I come from Dudley.  He knows the facts.  I wish to serve you, in every way.’

Victor’s head had lifted.

‘Who was it?’

‘No enemy.’

’Her mother.  She did rightly!

‘Certainly she did,’ said Victor, and he thought that instantaneously of the thing done.  ’Oh, then she spoke to him!  She has kept it from me.  For now nearly a week—­six days—­I’ve seen her spying for something she expected, like a face behind a door three inches ajar.  She has not been half alive; she refused explanations;—­she was expecting to hear from him, of him:—­the decision, whatever it’s to be!’

‘I can’t aid you there,’ said Lady Grace.  ’He’s one of the unreadables.  He names Tuesday next week.’

‘By all means.’

‘She?’

’Fredi?—­poor Fredi!—­ah, my poor girl, yes!—­No, she knows nothing.  Here is the truth of it.—­she, the legitimate, lives:  they say she lives.  Well, then, she lives against all rules physical or medical, lives by sheer force of will—­it’s a miracle of the power of a human creature to . . . .  I have it from doctors, friends, attendants, they can’t