THE LAST CHANCE.“HIS lordship is dangerously ill, Sir. Her ladyship can receive no visitors.”
“Be so good as to take that card to Lady Holchester. It is absolutely necessary that your mistress should be made acquainted—in the interests of her younger son—with something which I can only mention to her ladyship herself.”
The two persons speaking were Lord Holchester’s head servant and Sir Patrick Lundie. At that time barely half an hour had passed since the close of the proceedings at Portland Place.
The servant still hesitated with the card in his hand. “I shall forfeit my situation,” he said, “if I do it.”
“You will most assuredly forfeit your situation if you don’t do it,” returned Sir Patrick. “I warn you plainly, this is too serious a matter to be trifled with.”
The tone in which t
