The letter from Lord Augustus was put into the post on Saturday evening; but when that line of action was decided upon by Arabella she was aware that she must not trust solely to her father.  Various plans were fermenting in her brain; all, or any of which, if carried out at all, must be carried out at the same time and at once.  There must be no delay, or that final chance of Patagonia would be gone.  The leader of a forlorn hope, though he be ever so resolved to die in the breach, still makes some preparation for his escape.  Among her plans the first in order was a resolution to see Lord Mistletoe whom she knew to be in town.  Parliament was to meet in the course of the next week and he was to move the address.  There had been much said about all this at Mistletoe from which she knew that he was in London preparing himself among the gentlemen at the Treasury.  Then she herself would write to the Duke.  She thought that she could concoct a letter that would move even his heart.  She would tell him that she was a daughter of the house of Trefoil, and “all that kind of thing.”  She had it distinctly laid down in her mind.  And then there was another move which she would make before she altogether threw up the game.  She would force herself into Lord Rufford’s presence and throw herself into his arms,—­at his feet if need be,—­and force him into compliance.  Should she fail, then she, too, had an idea what a raging woman could do.  But her first step now must be with her cousin Mistletoe.  She would not write to the Duke till she had seen her cousin.

Lord Mistletoe when in London lived at the family house in Piccadilly, and thither early on the Sunday morning she sent a note to say that she especially wished to see her cousin and would call at three o’clock on that day.  The messenger brought back word that Lord Mistletoe would be at home, and exactly at that hour the hired brougham stopped at the door.  Her mother had wished to accompany her but she had declared that if she could not go alone she would not go at all.  In that she was right; for whatever favour the young heir to the family honours might retain for his fair cousin, who was at any rate a Trefoil, he had none for his uncle’s wife.  She was shown into his own sitting-room on the ground floor, and then he immediately joined her.  “I wouldn’t have you shown upstairs,” he said, “because I understand from your note that you want to see me in particular.”

“That is so kind of you.”

Lord Mistletoe was a young man about thirty, less in stature than his father or uncle, but with the same handsome inexpressive face.  Almost all men take to some line in life.  His father was known as a manager of estates; his uncle as a whist-player; he was minded to follow the steps of his grandfather and be a statesman.  He was eaten up by no high ambition but lived in the hope that by perseverance he might live to become a useful Under Secretary, and perhaps, ultimately, a Privy Seal.  As he was well educated and laborious, and had no objection to sitting for five hours together in the House of Commons with nothing to do and sometimes with very little to hear, it was thought by his friends that he would succeed.  “And what is it I can do?” he said with that affable smile to which he had already become accustomed as a government politician.