He complained of mysterious aches and pains, described himself in the presence of hotel-keepers and headwaiters as a mass of maladies.

He was nervous, irritable, intensely disagreeable.

Lady Maulevrier bore his humours with unwavering patience, and won golden opinions from all sorts of people by her devotion to a husband whose blighted name was the common talk of England.

Everybody, even in distant provincial towns, had heard of the scandal against the Governor of Madras; and everybody looked at the sallow, faded Anglo-Indian with morbid curiosity.

His lordship, sensitive on all points touching his own ease and comfort, was keenly conscious of this unflattering inquisitiveness.
The journey, protracted by Lord Maulevrier's languor and ill-health, dragged its slow length along for nearly a fortnight; until it seemed to Lady Maulevrier as if they had been travelling upon those dismal, flat, unpicturesque roads for months.