第452章 MR. LEPEL AND THE HOUSEKEEPER(66)

"However your pride may despise me," she wrote, "I am indebted to you for the rise in life that I have always desired. You may refuse to see me--but you can't prevent my being the mother-in-law of a gentleman."Soon afterward, I received a visit which I had hardly ventured to expect. Busy as he was in London, my doctor came to see me. He was not in his usual good spirits.

"I hope you don't bring me any bad news?" I said.

"You shall judge for yourself," he replied. "I come from Mr. Rothsay, to say for him what he is not able to say for himself.""Where is he?"

"He has left England."

"For any purpose that you know of?"

"Yes. He has sailed to join the expedition of rescue--I ought rather to call it the forlorn hope--which is to search for the lost explorers in Central Australia."In other words, he had gone to seek death in the fatal footsteps of Burke and Wills. I could not trust myself to speak.

The doctor saw that there was a reason for my silence, and that he would do well not to notice it. He changed the subjectj.

"May I ask," he said, "if you have heard from the servants left in charge at your house in London?""Has anything happened?"