Could the great world credit these monstrous calumnies? Might the reiterate malice of the public prints infect his nearer acquaintances—those at whose tables he had sat almost weekly, the cliques of the clubs, the gay set at Almack’s, the circle of Melbourne House?
He drew a sharp breath, for he thought of William Lamb, heir to the Melbourne title, from whom he had daily expected a cartel. He would leave no path of revenge untrod; nor would Lady Caroline. Could their disassociate hatred envenom even the few for whose opinion he cared?
The Courier had reserved its bitterest attack. On the second day it published the stanzas entitled “Fare Thee Well,” signed by Gordon’s name. He saw them with a strange sensation, his mind grasping for the cords he felt enmeshing him, his eyes fully opened now to the devilish ingenuity of his persecution.
But he himself stood appalled at the deadly effect of this attack. Innuendo was thrown aside; invective took its place. Paragraph, pamphlet and caricature held the lines up to odium. The hypocrisy of a profligate! A cheap insincere appeal to mawkish sympathy! A tasteless vulgar parade of a poseur strumming his heartstrings on the highway!
It came to Gordon with a start that during the past forty-eight hours he had forgotten his mail. He rang the bell and asked for his letters.
“There are none, my lord.”
No letters? And daily for a year his table had been deluged with tinted and perfumed billets crested and sealed with signets of great houses. No letters!
“Who has called to-day?”
Fletcher’s honest eyes could scarcely meet his master’s. “Mr. Hobhouse called this morning, and Mr. Dallas this afternoon.”
“That is all?”