There was a time when a man in search of the pleasures of gossipsought the society of ladies. The man knows better now.He goes to the smoking-room of his club.

Doctor Wybrow lit his cigar, and looked round him at his brethrenin social conclave assembled. The room was well filled;but the flow of talk was still languid. The Doctor innocentlyapplied the stimulant that was wanted. When he inquired ifanybody knew the Countess Narona, he was answered by somethinglike a shout of astonishment. Never (the conclave agreed)had such an absurd question been asked before! Every human creature,with the slightest claim to a place in society, knew the Countess Narona.An adventuress with a European reputation of the blackest possible colour--such was the general description of the woman with the deathlikecomplexion and the glittering eyes.

Descending to particulars, each member of the club contributedhis own little stock of scandal to the memoirs of the Countess.It was doubtful whether she was really, what she called herself,a Dalmatian lady. It was doubtful whether she had everbeen married to the Count whose widow she assumed to be.It was doubtful whether the man who accompanied her in her travels(under the name of Baron Rivar, and in the character of her brother)was her brother at all. Report pointed to the Baron as a gambler atevery 'table' on the Continent. Report whispered that his so-calledsister had narrowly escaped being implicated in a famous trialfor poisoning at Vienna--that she had been known at Milan as a spyin the interests of Austria--that her 'apartment' in Paris had beendenounced to the police as nothing less than a private gambling-house--and that her present appearance in England was the natural resultof the discovery. Only one member of the assembly in the smoking-roomtook the part of this much-abused woman, and declared that hercharacter had been most cruelly and most unjustly assailed.But as the man was a lawyer, his interference went for nothing:it was naturally attributed to the spirit of contradiction inherentin his profession. He was asked derisively what he thoughtof the circumstances under which the Countess had becomeengaged to be married; and he made the characteristic answer,that he thought the circumstances highly creditable to both parties,and that he looked on the lady's future husband as a mostenviable man.

Hearing this, the Doctor raised another shout of astonishment byinquiring the name of the gentleman whom the Countess was about to marry.

His friends in the smoking-room decided unanimously that thecelebrated physician must be a second 'Rip-van-Winkle,' and thathe had just awakened from a supernatural sleep of twenty years.It was all very well to say that he was devoted to his profession,and that he had neither time nor inclination to pick up fragmentsof gossip at dinner-parties and balls. A man who did not knowthat the Countess Narona had borrowed money at Homburg of no lessa person than Lord Montbarry, and had then deluded him into makingher a proposal of marriage, was a man who had probably never heardof Lord Montbarry himself. The younger members of the club,humouring the joke, sent a waiter for the 'Peerage'; and read aloudthe memoir of the nobleman in question, for the Doctor's benefit--with illustrative morsels of information interpolated by themselves.

'Herbert John Westwick. First Baron Montbarry, of Montbarry,King's County, Ireland. Created a Peer for distinguished militaryservices in India. Born, 1812. Forty-eight years old, Doctor,at the present time. Not married. Will be married next week,Doctor, to the delightful creature we have been talking about.Heir presumptive, his lordship's next brother, Stephen Robert,married to Ella, youngest daughter of the Reverend Silas Marden,Rector of Runnigate, and has issue, three daughters. Younger brothersof his lordship, Francis and Henry, unmarried. Sisters of his lordship,Lady Barville, married to Sir Theodore Barville, Bart.; and Anne,widow of the late Peter Norbury, Esq., of Norbury Cross.Bear his lordship's relations well in mind, Doctor. Three brothersWestwick, Stephen, Francis, and Henry; and two sisters, Lady Barvilleand Mrs. Norbury. Not one of the five will be present at the marriage;and not one of the five will leave a stone unturned to stop it,if the Countess will only give them a chance. Add to these hostilemembers of the family another offended relative not mentioned in the'Peerage,' a young lady--'

A sudden outburst of protest in more than one part of the room stoppedthe coming disclosure, and released the Doctor from further persecution.

'Don't mention the poor girl's name; it's too bad to make a joke of thatpart of the business; she has behaved nobly under shameful provocation;there is but one excuse for Montbarry--he is either a madman or a fool.'In these terms the protest expressed itself on all sides.Speaking confidentially to his next neighbour, the Doctordiscovered that the lady referred to was already known to him(through the Countess's confession) as the lady deserted byLord Montbarry. Her name was Agnes Lockwood. She was describedas being the superior of the Countess in personal attraction,and as being also by some years the younger woman of the two.Making all allowance for the follies that men committed every dayin their relations with women, Montbarry's delusion was stillthe most monstrous delusion on record. In this expressionof opinion every man present agreed--the lawyer even included.Not one of them could call to mind the innumerable instances inwhich the sexual influence has proved irresistible in the personsof women without even the pretension to beauty. The very membersof the club whom the Countess (in spite of her personal disadvantages)could have most easily fascinated, if she had thought it worth her while,were the members who wondered most loudly at Montbarry's choice ofa wife.

While the topic of the Countess's marriage was still the one topicof conversation, a member of the club entered the smoking-roomwhose appearance instantly produced a dead silence.Doctor Wybrow's next neighbour whispered to him, 'Montbarry's brother--Henry Westwick!'

The new-comer looked round him slowly, with a bitter smile.

'You are all talking of my brother,'he said. 'Don't mind me.Not one of you can despise him more heartily than I do.Go on, gentlemen--go on!'

But one man present took the speaker at his word. That man wasthe lawyer who had already undertaken the defence of the Countess.

'I stand alone in my opinion,' he said, 'and I am not ashamed ofrepeating it in anybody's hearing. I consider the Countess Narona to bea cruelly-treated woman. Why shouldn't she be Lord Montbarry's wife?Who can say she has a mercenary motive in marrying him?'

Montbarry's brother turned sharply on the speaker. 'I say it!'he answered.

The reply might have shaken some men. The lawyer stood on hisground as firmly as ever.

'I believe I am right,' he rejoined, 'in stating that his lordship'sincome is not more than sufficient to support his station in life;also that it is an income derived almost entirely from landed propertyin Ireland, every acre of which is entailed.'

Montbarry's brother made a sign, admitting that he had no objectionto offer so far.

'If his lordship dies first,' the lawyer proceeded, 'I have beeninformed that the only provision he can make for his widow consistsin a rent-charge on the property of no more than four hundred a year.His retiring pension and allowances, it is well known, die with him.Four hundred a year is therefore all that he can leave to the Countess,if he leaves her a widow.'

'Four hundred a year is not all,' was the reply to this.'My brother has insured his life for ten thousand pounds;and he has settled the whole of it on the Countess, in the eventof his death.'

This announcement produced a strong sensation. Men looked at each other,and repeated the three startling words, 'Ten thousand pounds!'Driven fairly to the wall, the lawyer made a last effort to defendhis position.

'May I ask who made that settlement a condition of the marriage?'he said. 'Surely it was not the Countess herself?.'

Henry Westwick answered, 'it was the Countess's brother'; and added,'which comes to the same thing.'

After that, there was no more to be said--so long, at least,as Montbarry's brother was present. The talk flowed into other channels;and the Doctor went home.

But his morbid curiosity about the Countess was not set at rest yet.In his leisure moments he found himself wondering whether LordMontbarry's family would succeed in stopping the marriage after all.And more than this, he was conscious of a growing desire to seethe infatuated man himself. Every day during the brief interval beforethe wedding, he looked in at the club, on the chance of hearing some news.Nothing had happened, so far as the club knew. The Countess's positionwas secure; Montbarry's resolution to be her husband was unshaken.They were both Roman Catholics, and they were to be married atthe chapel in Spanish Place. So much the Doctor discovered about them--and no more.

On the day of the wedding, after a feeble struggle with himself,he actually sacrificed his patients and their guineas, and slippedaway secretly to see the marriage. To the end of his life,he was angry with anybody who reminded him of what he had done onthat day!

The wedding was strictly private. A close carriage stood atthe church door; a few people, mostly of the lower class, and mostlyold women, were scattered about the interior of the building.Here and there Doctor Wybrow detected the faces of some of hisbrethren of the club, attracted by curiosity, like himself.Four persons only stood before the altar--the bride and bridegroomand their two witnesses. One of these last was an elderly woman,who might have been the Countess's companion or maid; the otherwas undoubtedly her brother, Baron Rivar. The bridal party(the bride herself included) wore their ordinary morning costume.Lord Montbarry, personally viewed, was a middle-aged military manof the ordinary type: nothing in the least remarkable distinguishedhim either in face or figure. Baron Rivar, again, in his way wasanother conventional representative of another well-known type.One sees his finely-pointed moustache, his bold eyes,his crisply-curling hair, and his dashing carriage of the head,repeated hundreds of times over on the Boulevards of Paris.The only noteworthy point about him was of the negative sort--he was not in the least like his sister. Even the officiatingpriest was only a harmless, humble-looking old man, who went throughhis duties resignedly, and felt visible rheumatic difficultiesevery time he bent his knees. The one remarkable person,the Countess herself, only raised her veil at the beginningof the ceremony, and presented nothing in her plain dress that wasworth a second look. Never, on the face of it, was there a lessinteresting and less romantic marriage than this. From time to timethe Doctor glanced round at the door or up at the galleries,vaguely anticipating the appearance of some protesting stranger,in possession of some terrible secret, commissioned to forbidthe progress of the service. Nothing in the shape of an event occurred--nothing extraordinary, nothing dramatic. Bound fast together as manand wife, the two disappeared, followed by their witnesses, to signthe registers; and still Doctor Wybrow waited, and still he cherishedthe obstinate hope that something worth seeing must certainlyhappen yet.

The interval passed, and the married couple, returning to the church,walked together down the nave to the door. Doctor Wybrowdrew back as they approached. To his confusion and surprise,the Countess discovered him. He heard her say to her husband,'One moment; I see a friend.' Lord Montbarry bowed and waited.She stepped up to the Doctor, took his hand, and wrung it hard.He felt her overpowering black eyes looking at him throughher veil. 'One step more, you see, on the way to the end!'She whispered those strange words, and returned to her husband.Before the Doctor could recover himself and follow her,Lord and Lady Montbarry had stepped into their carriage, and haddriven away.

Outside the church door stood the three or four members of the club who,like Doctor Wybrow, had watched the ceremony out of curiosity.Near them was the bride's brother, waiting alone. He was evidently benton seeing the man whom his sister had spoken to, in broad daylight.His bold eyes rested on the Doctor's face, with a momentary flashof suspicion in them. The cloud suddenly cleared away; the Baronsmiled with charming courtesy, lifted his hat to his sister's friend,and walked off.

The members constituted themselves into a club conclave on thechurch steps. They began with the Baron. 'Damned ill-looking rascal!'They went on with Montbarry. 'Is he going to take that horridwoman with him to Ireland?' 'Not he! he can't face the tenantry;they know about Agnes Lockwood.' 'Well, but where is he going?''To Scotland.' 'Does she like that?' 'It's only for a fortnight;they come back to London, and go abroad.' 'And they will never returnto England, eh?' 'Who can tell? Did you see how she looked at Montbarry,when she had to lift her veil at the beginning of the service?In his place, I should have bolted. Did you see her, Doctor?'By this time, Doctor Wybrow had remembered his patients, and had heardenough of the club gossip. He followed the example of Baron Rivar,and walked off.

'One step more, you see, on the way to the end,' he repeated to himself,on his way home. 'What end?'