It was not in my power to refuse this request from one whom I fancied to be dying in the very bloom of youth; and we passed two whole days together, without once quarrelling. Meyler's late indisposition had, in fact, left him too weak to contend, while I humoured him as though he had been a child.
We slept in separate beds, in the same room; and, on the night previous to Meyler's departure for England, just as we were composing ourselves to rest, Lord Ebrington walked up to my bedside! I screamed aloud. Perhaps I mistook him for a ghost, or, it might be, I dreaded the effect this mal à propos visit might have on poor Meyler's shattered and irritable nerves.
"Dear little Harry, have I frightened you?" said Lord Ebrington, in speechless dismay.
I pointed with my finger towards the small French bed, where poor Meyler was still calmly sleeping, and Lord Ebrington hastily bolted from the room. I then got out of bed, and, after steadfastly examining Meyler's features to ascertain that he really slept, seized my lamp, and hastened to awaken my English maid, who slept in a closet adjoining my bedroom, which was situated next to the entrance-room.
I asked her how she came to be so forgetful as to leave the key on the outside of the ante-room.
Martha was frightened to death and begged my pardon; hoped nothing had been stolen.
"A man has entered our bedroom," answered I, and Martha was thinking about fainting!
"Don't faint," said I, "but secure the door instead." I then crept quietly back to my bed, resolved not to tease poor Meyler by acquainting him with Lord Ebrington's unexpected return. I however wrote to his lordship early the following morning, desiring him not to make his appearance until Meyler should have left Paris.
For more than a month after Meyler's departure for Melton Mowbray, I continued in very low spirits about him. Lord Ebrington, after travelling two whole days along a flat, ugly country, was seized with a fit of love for me, or disgust of flat countries, I am not sure which.