It was doubtful whether the man who accompanied her in her travels (under the name of Baron Rivar, and in the character of her brother) was her brother at all.

Report pointed to the Baron as a gambler at every 'table' on the Continent.

Report whispered that his so-called sister had narrowly escaped being implicated in a famous trial for poisoning at Vienna--that she had been known at Milan as a spy in the interests of Austria--that her 'apartment' in Paris had been denounced to the police as nothing less than a private gambling-house--and that her present appearance in England was the natural result of the discovery.

Only one member of the assembly in the smoking-room took the part of this much-abused woman, and declared that her character had been most cruelly and most unjustly assailed.

But as the man was a lawyer, his interference went for nothing: it was naturally attributed to the spirit of contradiction inherent in his profession.