CHAPTER V.
About L.D.
Apollo Crosbie left London for Allington on the 31st of August, intending to stay there four weeks, with the declared intention of recruiting his strength by an absence of two months from official cares, and with no fixed purpose as to his destiny for the last of those two months.

Offers of hospitality had been made to him by the dozen.

Lady Hartletop's doors, in Shropshire, were open to him, if he chose to enter them.

He had been invited by the Countess de Courcy to join her suite at Courcy Castle.

His special friend, Montgomerie Dobbs, had a place in Scotland, and then there was a yachting party by which he was much wanted.