Sir Lukin gratified Lady Dunstane by his honest championship of Diana.  And now, in his altered mood (the thrice indebted rogue was just cloudily conscious of a desire to propitiate his dear wife by serving her friend), he began a crusade against the scandal-newspapers, going with an Irish military comrade straight to the editorial offices, and leaving his card and a warning that the chastisement for print of the name of the lady in their columns would be personal and condign.  Captain Carew Mahony, albeit unacquainted with Mrs. Warwick, had espoused her cause.  She was a woman, she was an Irishwoman, she was a beautiful woman.  She had, therefore, three positive claims on him as a soldier and a man.  Other Irish gentlemen, animated by the same swelling degrees, were awaking to the intimation that they might be wanted.  Some words were dropped here and there by General Lord Larrian:  he regretted his age and infirmities.  A goodly regiment for a bodyguard might have been selected to protect her steps in the public streets; when it was bruited that the General had sent her a present of his great Newfoundland dog, Leander, to attend on her and impose a required respect.  But as it chanced that her address was unknown to the volunteer constabulary, they had to assuage their ardour by thinking the dog luckier than they.

The report of the dog was a fact.  He arrived one morning at Diana’s lodgings, with a soldier to lead him, and a card to introduce:—­the Hercules of dogs, a very ideal of the species, toweringly big, benevolent, reputed a rescuer of lives, disdainful of dog-fighting, devoted to his guardian’s office, with a majestic paw to give and the noblest satisfaction in receiving caresses ever expressed by mortal male enfolded about the head, kissed, patted, hugged, snuggled, informed that he was his new mistress’s one love and darling.

She despatched a thrilling note of thanks to Lord Larrian, sure of her touch upon an Irish heart.

The dog Leander soon responded to the attachment of a mistress enamoured of him.  ‘He is my husband,’ she said to Emma, and started a tear in the eyes of her smiling friend; ’he promises to trust me, and never to have the law of me, and to love my friends as his own; so we are certain to agree.’  In rain, snow, sunshine, through the parks and the streets, he was the shadow of Diana, commanding, on the whole, apart from some desperate attempts to make him serve as introducer, a civilized behaviour in the legions of Cupid’s footpads.  But he helped, innocently enough, to create an enemy.

CHAPTER XIV

Giving glimpses of Diana under her cloud before the world and of her further apprenticeship