"No, not exactly that; but, still, to say that you didn't know whether you were or not, would be a terrible blunder! It would amount to a confession that you were Davises of nowhere at all."

"Which is about the truth, perhaps," said she, in the same tone.

"Oh! truth is a very nice thing, but not always pleasant to tell."

"But don't you think you could save me from an examination in which I am so certain to acquit myself ill, by simply stating that you have married a person without rank, station, or fortune? These facts once understood, I feel certain that her Ladyship will never allude to them unpleasantly."

"Then there 's another point," said Beecher, evidently piqued that he had not succeeded in irritating her,--"there 's another point, and you must be especially careful about it,--never, by any chance, let out that you were educated at a school, or a pensionnat, or whatever they call it. If there 's anything she cannot abide, it is the thought of a girl brought up at a school; mind, therefore, only say, 'my governess.'"

She smiled and was silent.

"Then she'll ask you if you had been 'out,' and when you were presented, and who presented you. She 'll do it so quietly and so naturally, you 'd never guess that she meant any impertinence by it."

"So much the better, for I shall not feel offended."

"As to the drawing-room," rejoined Beecher, "you must say that you always lived very retiredly,--never came up to town; that your father saw very little company."

"Is not this Chiavenna we 're coming to?" asked Lizzy, a slight--but very slight--flush rising to her cheek. And now the loud cracking of the postilions' whips drowned all other sounds as the horses tore along through the narrow streets, making the frail old houses rock and shiver as they passed. A miserable-looking vetturino carriage stood at the inn door, and was dragged hastily out of the way to make room for the more pretentious equipage. Scarcely had the courier got down than the whole retinue of the inn was in motion, eagerly asking if "Milordo" would not alight, if his "Eccellenza" would not take some refreshment.

But his "Eccellenza" would do neither; sooth to say, he was not in the best of humors, and curtly said, "No, I want nothing but post-horses to get out of this wretched place."

"Is n't that like an Englishman?" said a voice from the vetturino carriage to some one beside him.

"But I know him," cried the other, leaping out. "It's the new Viscount Lackington." And with this he approached the carriage, and respectfully removing his hat, said, "How d'ye do, my Lord?"

"Ah, Spicer! you here?" said Beecher, half haughtily. "Off to England, I suppose?"

"No, my Lord, I 'm bound for Rome."

"So are we, too. Lady Lackington and myself," added be, correcting at once a familiar sort of a glance that Spicer found time to bestow upon Lizzy. "Do you happen to know if Lady Georgina is there?"

"Yes, my Lord, at the Palazzo Gondi, on the Pintian;" and here Spicer threw into his look an expression of respectful homage to her Ladyship.

"Palazzo Gondi; will you try and remember that address?" said Beecher to his wife. And then, waving his hand to Spicer, he added, "Good-bye,--meet you at Rome some of these days," and was gone.

CHAPTER XXVIII. AT ROME

In a small and not very comfortably furnished room looking out upon the Pintian Hill at Rome, two ladies were seated, working,--one in deep mourning, whose freshness indicated a recent loss; the other in a strangely fashioned robe of black silk, whose deep cape and rigid absence of ornament recalled something of the cloister. The first was the widowed Viscountess Lackington; the second the Lady Grace Twining, a recent convert to Rome, and now on her way to some ecclesiastical preferment in the Church, either as "Chanoinesse," or something equally desirable. Lady Lackington looked ill and harassed; there were not on her face any traces of deep sorrow or affliction, but the painful marks of much thought. It was the expression of one who had gone through a season of trial wherein she had to meet events and personages all new and strange to her. It was only during the last few days of Lord Lackington's illness that she learned the fact of a contested claim to the title, but, brief as was the time, every post brought a mass of letters bearing on this painful topic. While the lawyers, therefore, showered their unpleasant and discouraging tidings, there was nothing to be heard of Beecher; none knew where he was, or how a letter was to reach him. All her own epistles to him remained unacknowledged.

Fordyce's people could not trace him, neither could Mr. Dunn, and there was actually the thought of asking the aid of that inquisitorial service whose detective energies are generally directed in the pursuit of guilt.

If Annesley Beecher might be slow to acknowledge the claims of fraternal affection, there was no one could accuse him of any lukewarmness to his own interests, and though it was now two months and upwards since the Viscount's death, yet he had never come forward to assert his new rank and station. Whatever suspicions might have weighed down the mind of the Viscountess regarding this mysterious disappearance, the language of all the lawyers' letters was assuredly ill calculated to assuage. They more than hinted that they suspected some deep game of treachery and fraud.

Beecher's long and close intimacy with the worst characters of the turf--men notorious for their agency in all the blackest intrigues--was continually brought up. His life of difficulty and strait, his unceasing struggle to meet his play engagements, driving him to the most ruinous compacts, all were quoted to show that to a man of such habits and with such counsellors any compromise would be acceptable that offered present and palpable advantages in lieu of a possible and remote future.

The very last letter the Viscountess received from Fordyce contained this startling passage: "It being perfectly clear that Mr. Beecher would only be too ready to avail himself of his newly acquired privileges if he could, we must direct our sole attention to those circumstances which may explain why he could not declare himself the Viscount Lackington.

Now, the very confident tone lately assumed by the Conway party seems to point to this mysterious clew, and everything I learn more and more disposes me to apprehend a shameful compromise."

It was with the letter that contained this paragraph before her Lady Lackington now sat, affecting to be engaged in her work, but in reality reading over, for the fiftieth time, the same gloomy passage.

"Is it not incredible that, constituted as the world now is, with its railroads and its telegraphs, you cannot immediately discover the whereabouts of any missing individual?" said Lady Lackington.

"I really think he must have been murdered," said Lady Grace, with the gentlest of accents, while she bent her head over the beautiful altar-cloth she was embroidering.

"Nonsense,--absurdity! such a crime would soon have publicity enough."

Lady Grace gave a smile of compassionate pity at the speech, but said nothing.

"I can't imagine how you could believe such a thing possible," said the Viscountess, tartly.

"I can only say, my dear, that no later than last night Monsignore assured me that, through M. Mazzini and the Bible societies, you can make away with any one in Europe, and, indeed, in most parts of the world besides. Don't smile so contemptuously, my dear. Remember who it is says this. Of course, as he remarks, the foolish newspapers have their own stupid explanations always ready, at one moment calling it a political crime, at another the act of insanity, and so on. They affected this language about Count Rossi, and then about the dear and sainted Archbishop of Paris; but what true believer ever accepted this?"

"Monsignore would not hold this language to me," said Lady Lackington, haughtily.

"Very probably not, dearest; he spoke in confidence when he mentioned it to me."

"I mean, that he would hesitate ere he forfeited any respect I entertain for his common-sense by the utterance of such wild absurdity. What is it, Turner?" asked she, suddenly, as her maid entered.

"Four packing-cases have just come, my Lady, with Mr. Spicer's respectful compliments, and that he will be here immediately,--he has only gone to change his dress."

"Why don't he come at once? I don't care for his dress."

"No, my Lady, of course not," said Turner, and retired.

"I must say he has made haste," said Lady Lackington, languidly. "It was only on the eighth or the ninth, I think, he left this, and as he had to get all my mourning things,--I had actually nothing,--and to go down to Lackington Court, and then to Wales, and after that to the Isle of Wight, what with lawyers and other tiresome people to talk to, he has really not done badly."

"I hope he has brought the chalice," sighed Lady Grace.

"I hope he has brought some tidings of my respectable brother-in-law,"

said the Viscountess, in a tone that seemed to say where the really important question lay.

"And the caviare,--I trust he has not forgotten the caviare. It is the only thing Monsignore eats at breakfast in Advent."

An insolent gesture of the head was all the acknowledgment Lady Lackington vouchsafed to this speech. At last she spoke: "When he can get horse-racing out of his head, Spicer is a very useful creature."

"Very, indeed," said Lady Grace.

"The absurd notion that he is a sporting character is the parent of so many other delusions; he fancies himself affluent, and, stranger still, imagines he's a gentleman." And the idea so amused her Ladyship that she laughed aloud at it.

"Mr. Spicer, my Lady," said a servant, flinging wide the door; and in a most accurate morning-dress, every detail of which was faultless, that gentleman bowed his way across the room with an amount of eagerness that might possibly exact a shake of the hand, but, if unsuccessful, might easily subside into a colder acceptance. Lady Lackington vouchsafed nothing beyond a faint smile, and the words, "How d'ye do?" as with a slight gesture she motioned to him the precise chair he was to seat himself on. Before taking his place, Mr. Spicer made a formal bow to Lady Grace, who, with a vacant smile, acknowledged the courtesy, and went on with her work.

"You have made very tolerable haste, Spicer," said Lady Lackington. "I scarcely expected you before Saturday."

"I have not been to bed for six nights, my Lady."

"You 'll sleep all the better for it to-night, perhaps."