"Sir Jasper ill!" replied Lord Marchmont, with the most decorous expression of distress; "I am grieved to hear of it. When did you receive the truly painful intelligence?"
"Oh, may I not go to him at once?"cried Henrietta, alive to nothing but her own alarm.
"I should, of course, however ill-timed and inconvenient to myself, wish you to do what was most proper on the occasion. But you know," continued he, "that you are apt to exaggerate: perhaps you will allow me again to repeat my question of, When did you receive the information of Sir Jasper's alarming illness?"
"Read his letter," exclaimed the countess, wringing her hands impatiently.
Lord Marchmont deliberately took up the epistle, first smoothing, with great care, a crease that had been made by folding it up in a different form to the original one. Twice, then, he changed its position, till the light fell upon it exactly as he liked; while Lady Marchmont watched him in a perfect fever of anxiety.
