Was he not, by her own declaration to him, her only friend; and as such could he entertain such a suspicion without anger?
"Her friend!" he said to himself.

"Not if she has any dealings whatever with that man after what she has told me of him!" He remembered at last that perhaps the count might not be at Ongar Park; but he must, at any rate, have had some dealing with Lady Ongar, or he would not have known the address in Bloomsbury Square.

"Count Pateroff!" he said, repeating the name, "I shouldn't wonder if I have to quarrel with that man." During the whole of that night he was thinking of Lady Ongar.

As regarded himself, he knew that he had nothing to offer to Lady Ongar but a brotherly friendship; but, nevertheless, it was an injury to him that she should be acquainted intimately with any unmarried man but himself.
On the next day he was to go to Stratton, and in the morning a letter was brought to him by the postman; a letter, or rather a very short note.

Guildford was the postmark, and he knew at once that it was from Lady Ongar.
DEAR MR.