"I left her at last, deeply moved—left her, full of anxiety as to her fate. On the threshold of the house I met Fétis, who had his usual air of triumphant malignity masked under a silken courtesy. It was the first time he and I had met in London.
"He asked me where I lodged, how long I had been in town, and whether I was still pursuing my scientific investigations. I told him I had other investigations on my hands, even more absorbing than those of the laboratory; I had my granddaughter's evil fortunes to guard from further decline.
"'Do you call it evil fortune to be mistress of such a house as this?' he asked, looking round him at the hall in which we were standing.
"'I call it infamy to be the mistress of your master, most of all, his slighted mistress,' I answered.
"'O, fie, sir! we all call the lady his wife. She is known here only as Mrs. Topsparkle.'
"'An empty honour, sir, which the more strongly indicates her dishonour. Did you ever know Mr. Topsparkle introduce his lady to any decent woman, to any persons of standing or repute? No, his only generosity is to surround her with a sybarite luxury, to leave her in a gilded desolation. You all know she is not your master's wife, and that no wife would consent to have her child carried off from her by a stranger to a place of which she knows not the name.'
"'My master is a man accustomed to rule,' answered Fétis. 'We none of us ever presume to thwart him.'
"I passed out of the house without another word, and waited day after day for some sign from Margharita, to whom I had given the address of my lodging; but none came. My illness had weakened me considerably, and I was no longer able to loiter about within sight of Mr. Topsparkle's door for an hour at a time; yet I dragged myself there every evening, and generally contrived to got a word with my ally in the servants' hall.
"One evening at dusk I saw a young man of remarkably handsome appearance leave Mr. Topsparkle's house, as I thought with a stealthy air, hurrying away with anxious glances to right and left, and with the collar of his cloak pulled up about his ears.
"Two days afterwards I saw in the Flying Post that there had been a passage of incivilities between the rich Mr. Topsparkle and young Mr. Churchill, a brother of the famous Mrs. Arabella Churchill, the favourite of the late King, a dispute which had nearly resulted in a duel. I went at once to Soho Square, but was refused admittance. Mrs. Topsparkle was dangerously ill, and her husband was in constant attendance upon her.