Andrew Larkspur had another long
private conference with Lady Eversleigh, the immediate result of which
was his setting out, mounted on the stout pony which we have seen in
difficulties in a previous chapter, and vainly endeavouring to come up
with Lionel Dale at the hunt. When Mr. Andrew Larkspur arrived at the
melancholy conviction that his errand was a useless one, and that he
must only return to Frimley, and concert with Lady Eversleigh a new
plan of action, he also became aware that he was more hurt and shaken
by his fall than he had at first supposed. When he reached Frimley he
felt exceedingly sick and weak, ("queer," he expressed it), and was
constrained to tell his anxious and unhappy client that he must go away
and rest if he hoped to be fit for anything in the evening, or on the
next day. "I will see Mr. Dale to-night, if he and I are both alive,"
said Mr. Larkspur; "but if he was there before me I could not say a
word to him now. I don't mean to say I have not had a hurt or two in
the course of my life before now, but I never was so regularly dead-
beat; and that's the truth."
Thus it happened that the acute Mr. Larkspur was _hors de combat_ just
at the time when his acuteness would have found most employment, and
thus Lady Eversleigh's project of vengeance received, unconsciously,
the first check. The game of reprisals was, indeed, destined to be
played, but not by her; Providence would do that, in time, in the long
run.
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