No sooner had this idea struck her, which many trifling circumstances tended to confirm, than Lady Stephenson determined to drop the subject for ever; and much as Agnes secretly but tremblingly wished it, no allusion was ever made to the two gentlemen again.
Days and weeks rolled on till the time fixed by Lord Mucklebury for his departure arrived. His collection of the Barnaby papers was quite as copious as he wished it to be; and having indulged himself and his friends with as many good stories as any one lady could be the heroine of, without being fatiguing, he parted with the widow on Saturday evening, assuring her, with a thousand expressions of passionate admiration, that he should be early on the walks to look for her on the morrow, and by noon on Sunday was on his road to London behind four gallopping post-horses.
During the whole of that fatal Sunday Mrs. Barnaby roamed through all the public walks of Cheltenham with the disconsolate air of a pigeon whose mate has been shot.... She was sad, cross, tender, and angry by turns; but never for a moment during that long dismal day did she ever once conceive the terrible idea that her intended mate was flown for ever. Nay, even on the morrow, when in answer to an inquiry at the reading-room, of whether Lord Mucklebury had been there that morning, the man replied,—"I believe his lordship has left the town, ma'am!"—not even then did her mind receive the terrible truth.
It was from the hand of her friend Miss Morrison that the blow came at last.... That lady on Wednesday evening entered her room, bringing a London newspaper with her; she was much irritated.
"Mong Dew, Mrs. Barnaby!" she cried, "look here."
The widow seized the paper with a trembling hand, and before she fainted read as follows:—
"Lord Viscount Mucklebury arrived this morning at Mivart's Hotel from Cheltenham. It is rumoured that his lordship is about to depart in a few days for the Continent, in order to pass the winter at Rome, but rather with the intention of kissing the hands of the beautiful Lady M—— S—— than the toe of his holiness."