were running from all directions towards the scene of fight. This

spectacle lent the secretary wings; and he did not relax his pace

until he had gained the Bayswater road, and plunged at random into

an unfrequented by-street.

To see two gentlemen of his acquaintance thus brutally mauling each

other was deeply shocking to Harry. He desired to forget the

sight; he desired, above all, to put as great a distance as

possible between himself and General Vandeleur; and in his

eagerness for this he forgot everything about his destination, and

hurried before him headlong and trembling. When he remembered that

Lady Vandeleur was the wife of one and the sister of the other of

these gladiators, his heart was touched with sympathy for a woman

so distressingly misplaced in life. Even his own situation in the

General's household looked hardly so pleasing as usual in the light

of these violent transactions.

He had walked some little distance, busied with these meditations,

before a slight collision with another passenger reminded him of

the bandbox on his arm.

"Heavens!" cried he, "where was my head? and whither have I

wandered?"

Thereupon he consulted the envelope which Lady Vandeleur had given

him. The address was there, but without a name. Harry was simply

directed to ask for "the gentleman who expected a parcel from Lady

Vandeleur," and if he were not at home to await his return. The

gentleman, added the note, should present a receipt in the

handwriting of the lady herself. All this seemed mightily

mysterious, and Harry was above all astonished at the omission of

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