Devil’s Cub

“They belong to the lady, my lord,” explained the lackey nervously.

“Lady? What lady?” said Vidal, astonished.

He was answered by the appearance of his cousin in the big doorway. Miss Marling had on a highly becoming hat, tied under her chin with pink ribands, and carried a feather-muff. Her face wore a look of mulish determination. “Oh, so there you are at last, Vidal!” she said.

“What in the fiend’s name brings you here?” asked the Marquis, coming to her side. “There’s nothing for you to do in this coil.”

Miss Marling looked up at him defiantly. “I am coming with you.”

“The devil you are!” ejaculated his lordship. “No, my fair cousin. I don’t hamper myself with a petticoat on this journey.”

“I am coming with you,” repreated Miss Marling.

“You’re not,” said Vidal curtly, and beckoned to his groom.

Juliana caught at his wrist. “You shan’t go without me!” she said in a fierce whisper. “You only care for your odious Mary, but she has run off with my Frederick, I’ll have you know, and I’ll come if I have to hire a post-chaise and travel alone! I mean it, Vidal!”

He looked down at her frowningly. “You do, do you? I doubt you won’t relish this journey overmuch.”

“You’ll take me?” she said eagerly.

He shrugged. “I’ll take you, but if I were your husband I’d soon school you, my girl.” He handed her up somewhat urgently into the chaise, and said brusquely: “Does Tante know of this?”

“Well, she was gone out, but I felt a letter explaining as well as I could for the hurry I was in.”

“Very well,” Vidal said, and shut the door on her.

One of the lackeys put up the steps; the postillions were already in their saddles, and grooms stood to the horses’ heads. Vidal pulled on his gloves, gathered the bay’s bridle in his left hand, and mounted. “Port Royal!” he said to the postillions, and reigned the bay in hard to let the chaise pass out of the courtyard.

At the first post-stage Miss Marling insisted on descending from the chaise. While the horses were changed she favoured the Marquis with a pungent criticism of his manners, and the springs of the chaise. She said that never had she been so shaken and battered. She wondered that any man should be so brutal as to subject a lady to such discomfort, and declared that she vastly regretted having come on the journey.

“I thought you would,” replied his lordship. “Perhaps it’ll teach you not to meddle in my affairs.”

“Your affairs?” gasped Miss Marling. “Do you imagine that I care a pin for your affairs? I’ve come on my own, Vidal!”

“Then don’t grumble,” he returned.

Miss Marling stalked back to the chaise in high dudgeon. At the next halt she did not even look out of the window, but at the end of another twelve miles, she alighted once more, with her cloak held tightly round her against the sharp evening wind.

It was dusk and the landscape was dim, with a grey mist rising off the ground. The lamps on the chaise had been lit, and a comfortable glow came from the windows of the small inn.

“Vidal, can we not stay here for the night?” asked Miss Marling in a fading voice.

His lordship was speaking to one of the ostlers. He finished what he had to say, and then came leisurely towards his cousin. He had put on his greatcoat, an affair of buff-coloured cloth, with three capes at the shoulders. “Tired?” he said.

“Of course I am tired, stupid creature!” replied Miss Marling.

“Go into the inn,” he commanded. “We dine here.”

“I vow I could not eat a morsel!”

He did not pay any heed to this, but walked back to say something to his groom. Miss Marling, hating him, flounced into the km, and was escorted by the landlord to a private parlour. A fire had been kindled in the grate, and Juliana drew up a chair and sat down, spreading her chilled fingers to the warmth.

Presently the Marquis came in. He flung his greatcoat over a chair, and kicked the smouldering logs to a small blaze. “That’s better,” he said briskly.

“You have made it smoke,” remarked Miss Marling in a voice of long suffering.

He looked down at her with a hint of a smile. “You’re hungry, and devilish cross, Ju.”

Her bosom swelled. “You have treated me abominably,” she said.

“Fiddle!” replied the Marquis.

“You let me be jolted and bumped till the teeth rattled in my head. You thrust me into your odious chaise as though I were a mere piece of baggage, and you have not the civility to stay with me.”

“I never drive when I can ride,” said his lordship indifferently.

“I make no doubt at all that had I been Mary Challoner you would have been glad enough to have borne me company!”

The Marquis was snuffing one of the candles, but he looked up at that, and there was a glint in his eye. “That, my dear, is quite another matter,” he said.

Miss Marling told him roundly that he was the rudest creature she had ever met and when he only laughed, she launched into a speech of some length.

He interrupted her to say: “My good cousin, do you wish to catch up with our two runaways, or not?”

“Of course I do! But must we travel at this shocking speed? They cannot reach Dijon for two or three days, and we’ve time enough, I should have thought, to come up with them.”

“I want to overtake them to-night,” Vidal said grimly. “They are not three hours ahead of us now.”

“What! Have we gained on them so fast? Then I take it all back, Vidal, every word. Let us go on at once!”

“We’ll dine first,” answered his lordship.

“How,” demanded Juliana tragically, “can you suppose that I could think of food at such a time?”

“Do you know,” said the Marquis gently, “I find you excessively tedious, Juliana. You complain of the speed at which I choose to travel; you talk a deal of damned nonsense about my incivility and your sensibilities; you spurn dinner as though it were poisoned; you behave in short like a heroine out of a melodrama.”

Miss Marling was prevented from replying by the entrance of two serving-men. Covers were laid, and chairs placed at the table. The men withdrew, and Miss Marling said carefully: “You have a vast deal to say in my dispraise, Vidal. Pray, is it to be expected that I should feel no agitation? To be sure, I am sorry I complained of the speed, but to be left hour upon hour alone in a jolting chaise is enough to try the patience even of a Mary Challoner.”

“No,” said his lordship. A reminiscent smile softened his mouth for a brief moment. “Come and sit down.”

She came, but told him that a glass of wine to revive her was all that was needed.

The Marquis shrugged. “Just as you please, cousin.”

Miss Marling sipped her wine, and watched his lordship carve the capon. She shuddered, and said that she wondered at him. “For my part,” she added, “I should have thought any gentleman of the least sensibility would have refrained from—from gorging when the lady in his company—”

“Ah, but I’m not a gentleman,” said the Marquis. “I have it on the best of authority that I am only a nobleman.”

“Good gracious, Vidal, who in the world dared to say such a thing?” cried his cousin, instantly diverted.

“Mary,” replied his lordship, pouring himself out a glass of wine.

“Well, if you sat eating as though nothing mattered save your dinner I’m not surprised,” said Juliana viciously. “If I were not so angry with her, the deceitful, sly wretch, I could pity her for all she must have undergone at your hands.”

“Seeing me eat was the least of her sufferings,” answered the Marquis. “She underwent much, but it may interest you to know, Juliana, that she never treated me to the vapours, as you seem like to do.”

“Then I can only say, Vidal, that either she had no notion what a horrid brutal man you are, or that she is just a dull creature with no nerves at all.”

For a moment Vidal did not answer. Then he said in a level voice: “She knew.” His lip curled. He glanced scornfully at his cousin. “Had I carried you off as I carried her you would have died of fright or hysterics, Juliana. Make no mistake, my dear; Mary was so desperately afraid she tried to put a bullet through me.”

“Tried to put a bullet through you, Dominic?” repeated Miss Marling incredulously. “I never heard a word of this before!”

“It is not a story that I should be likely to tell, since it don’t redound to my credit,” said Vidal drily. “But when you sit there full of airs and graces because you’ve been jolted over a bad road, and sneer at Mary—”

“I didn’t sneer!” said Juliana hastily. “I’d no notion you behaved so dreadfully badly to her. You said you forced her aboard your yacht, but I never supposed that you really frightened her enough to make her fire at you. You need not be in a rage with me for saying so, Dominic, but when I saw Mary at your house she was so placid I made sure you’d not treated her so very brutally after all. Had you?”

“Yes,” said Vidal bluntly. He looked at Juliana. “You think it was vastly romantic for Mary to be carried off by me, don’t you? You think you would enjoy it, and you cannot conceive how she should be afraid, can you? Then think, my girl! Think a little! You are in my power at this moment, I may remind you. What if I make you feel it? What if I say to start with that you shall eat your dinner, and force it down your throat?”

Juliana shrank back from him involuntarily. “Don’t, Vidal! Don’t come near me!” she said, frightened by the expression in his face.

He laughed. “Not so romantic, is it, Ju? And to force you to eat your dinner would be a small thing compared with some other things I might force you to do. Sit down, I’m not going to touch you.”

She obeyed, eyeing him nervously. “I—I wish I hadn’t come with you!” she said.

“So did Mary, with more reason. But Mary would have died sooner than let me see that she was afraid. And Mary, my love, is not my cousin.”

Juliana drew a long breath. “Of course, I didn’t think that you would really force me to eat,” she said. “You—you merely startled me.”

“Well, I shall force you if you don’t take care,” said his lordship. He carved a slice of breast, and handed it to her. “Don’t be tiresome, Juliana. Eat it, and forget your sensibilities. You’ve not much time.”

Juliana took the plate meekly. “Oh, very well,” she said. “I must say, Dominic, if you looked at Mary in that dreadful threatening way I can almost forgive her for running off with Frederick.” She stole a sidelong look at him. “You were not very kind to Mary, apparently.”

“Kind!” ejaculated Vidal. “No, I was not—kind.”

Juliana ate another morsel of capon. “You seem to me to have behaved as though you hated her,” she remarked.

He said nothing. Juliana peeped at him again. “You’re very anxious to get her in your power again, Vidal. But I don’t quite know why you should be, for you meant to marry her only because you had ruined her, and so were obliged to, didn’t you?”

She thought that he was not going to answer, but suddenly he raised his eyes from the contemplation of the dregs of his wine. “Because I am obliged to?” he said. “I mean to marry Mary Challoner because I’m devilish sure I can’t live without her.”

Juliana clapped her hands with a crow of delight. “Oh, it is famous!” she exclaimed. “I never dreamed you had fallen in love with my staid Mary! I thought you were chasing her through France just because you so hate to be crossed! But when you flew into a rage with me for saying she was too dull to be afraid of you, of course, I guessed at once! My dearest Dominic, I was never more glad of anything in my life, and it is of all things the most romantic possible! Do, do let us overtake them at once! Only conceive of their astonishment when they see us!”

“Mary knows I am hard on her heels,” Vidal answered, with a little laugh. “At every stage I meet with the same tale: the English lady was anxious to lose no time. She’s used to my way of travel, Juliana; she’ll whisk your Frederick to Dijon in a manner highly discomposing to his dignity.”

“It is possible,” said Miss Marling stiffly, “that Frederick and not Mary will have the ordering of the journey.”

Vidal chuckled. “Not if I know my Mary,” he replied.

Twenty minutes later they took the road again. Dinner had revived Miss Marling’s spirits, and she made no demur at entering the chaise again. Knowing that she was within reach of her Frederick she could not now drive fast enough, and her only fear was that they might overshoot their mark. Somewhere on the route Frederick and Mary must have halted for the night, and Miss Marling was inclined to stop at every village they passed, in case the fugitives might be there.

She occupied herself in planning the scene that lay before her, and had decided on the speech she would make when there was a sudden crash, and she was hurled against the side of the chaise. There was a dreadful bump, the smash of breaking glass, and Miss Marling, considerably shaken and dazed, tried to right herself only to find that the seat of the coach was now at a very odd angle, and the off-door almost where the roof should have been. She heard the trampling of the horses plunging in alarm, and the voices of the postillions. Then the off-door was wrenched open, and Vidal said sharply: “Are you hurt, Ju?”

“No, but what has happened?—Oh, I have cut myself! Oh, this dreadful glass! It is too bad of you, Dominic! I said we were driving at a wicked pace, and now see what has happened!”

“We’ve lost a wheel,” explained his lordship. “Reach up your hands to me, and I’ll pull you out.”

This feat was performed in an expeditious if somewhat rough-and-ready fashion. Juliana was swung down on to the road, and left to examine her hurts while his lordship went to see that the frightened horses were unhurt. When he came back he found his cousin in a state of seething indignation. She demanded to know where they were, how he proposed to come up with the runaways, where they were to sleep, and whether anyone cared enough to bind up her bleeding hand or not.

The Marquis performed this office for her by the light of one of the chaise lamps, and told her not to be in a taking over a mere scratch. He said that they were, providentially, only a quarter of a mile from the next village, where they could obtain a lodging for the night in one of the cottages.

“What?” shrieked the afflicted Miss Marling. “Sleep in a horrid peasant’s cottage? I won’t! You must find another chaise at once! At once, Vidal, do you hear?”

“I hear,” said his lordship coolly. “Now, don’t be nonsensical, Juliana. You’ll do well enough. For all I know there may be an inn you can stay at, though I won’t vouch for the sheets. There’s no hope of repairing the chaise till the morning, for Richards will have to ride to the nearest town to find a smith. I’m sending him off now, and for the present you must make the best of it. We shall catch our runaways in time, don’t doubt it.”

Miss Marling, overcome by the ignominy of her position, sank down on the bank by the roadside and gave way to her emotions. The postillions regarded her with interested sympathy; Richards coughed in embarrassment; and my lord, raising his clenched fists to heaven, prayed to be delivered from every female but one.

Chapter XV

at about the same time that the Marquis of Vidal’s chaise lost a wheel, the Duchess of Avon and Lord Rupert Alastair arrived in Paris, and drove straight to the Hotel Avon.

“What had we best do first, Rupert?” her grace asked anxiously, as the chaise drew into the courtyard.

“Have some dinner,” replied his lordship, with a prodigious yawn. “If there’s anyone in the house, which I doubt.”

“But why should you doubt? We know that Dominique is in Paris!”

“Lord, Léonie, don’t be so simple! Dominic’s lax, but damme, he wouldn’t bring his mistress to your house.” Lord Rupert heaved his body out of the corner of the chaise, and looked out of the window. “Place looks as deserted as a tomb,” he remarked, opening the door.

A solitary lackey came out of the house, attracted by the noise of the arrival, and began to say that his lordship was out of town. Then Lord Rupert sprang from the chaise, and the lackey, recognizing him, looked very much taken aback, and as though he did not know what to say.

Lord Rupert eyed him appraisingly. “One of Lord Vidal’s servants, aren’t you?” he said. “Where’s his lordship?”

“I couldn’t say, my lord,” answered the lackey cautiously.

“Won’t say, more like,” said Rupert. He turned, and gave his hand to Léonie who was descending from the chaise. “There’s one of Vidal’s fellows here, so it looks as though the boy had been here. Odd, damned odd.”

The Duchess shook out her crushed skirts with a purposeful air, and looked at the lackey, who was staring at her aghast. “It is you who are my son’s servant? Bon! Where is milor’?”

“I don’t know, your grace. He’s not in town.”

“Is there anyone in the house?” demanded the Duchess.

“No, your grace. Only the servants, that is.”

Léonie pounced on this. “Why is it then that the house is full of my son’s servants and yet he is not here?”

The lackey shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “His lordship left Paris this afternoon, your grace.”

Léonie turned to Lord Rupert, throwing out her hands. “But it is imbecile! Why should he leave Paris? I don’t believe a word of it. Where is Fletcher?”

“Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Timms have both gone out, your grace.”

“What, has his lordship gone off without his valet?” demanded Rupert.

“Yes, my lord.”

“I am going into the house,” announced Léonie.

Rupert watched her go, and looked at the lackey again. “Come on, out with it, my man: Where’s his lordship?”

“My lord, indeed I could not say. If your lordship would wait till Mr. Fletcher comes in, maybe he would know.”

“It looks to me like a damned fishy business,” said Rupert severely, and followed Léonie into the hall.

He found her grace trying to pump the housekeeper. When she saw him Léonie said: “Rupert, it is what I do not at all understand! She says the girl was never here. And I do not think she is lying to me, for she is my servant, and not Dominique’s.”

Lord Rupert divested himself of his heavy Rockelaure. “Well, if Vidal’s got rid of the wench already, I’d say it’s quick work,” he remarked admiringly. “Stap me, if I know how he manages it! I always found ’em cling so there was no shaking the dear creatures off at all.”

Léonie cast him a glance of scorn and swept upstairs. The housekeeper would have followed her, but his lordship detained her, and broached the matter nearest his heart. The housekeeper was shocked to learn that the travellers had not yet dined, and hurried away to order a meal to be prepared at once.

When Léonie saw Rupert again dinner was on the table, and his lordship had just come in from a visit to the stables. He took his seat opposite Léonie, and said with a puzzled air: “Blister me if I can make head or tail of this coil. Vidal’s damned lackeys are as close as a lot of oysters. Y’know, Léonie, the boy’s a marvel, so he is. I never could keep a servant who didn’t blab all my affairs to the world.”

“He is coming back,” Léonie said positively. “I have looked in his room, and all his clothes are there.”

Lord Rupert coughed. “Anything else, my dear?” he asked, with delicacy.

“Nothing,” said Léonie. “It is very curious, do you not think? For where can the girl be?”

“That’s what beats me,” confessed Rupert. “Not but what I never thought to find her here. But if she’s not, why is Vidal? That’s what I don’t understand. Now, I’ve been talking to the grooms. All I can find is that Vidal left Paris by the Port Royal to-day. Naturally, I don’t like to ask ’em point-blank if he’d a wench with him, and none of ’em—”

“Why not?” interrupted the Duchess. “Burn it, you can’t ask lackeys questions like that, Léonie!”

“I do not see why not. I want to know, and if I do not ask who will tell me?”

“They’ll never tell you, anyway, my dear,” his lordship informed her.

Dinner was over when Fletcher at last put in an appearance, and Rupert and Léonie had repaired to the library. Fletcher came in, sedate as ever, and begged her grace’s pardon for having been out when she arrived. Léonie brushed that aside, and once more demanded to know her son’s whereabouts.

“I think, your grace,” he answered guardedly, “that his lordship has gone to Dijon.”

Lord Rupert stared at him. “What in the fiend’s name does he want in Dijon?” he asked.

“His lordship did not tell me, my lord.” Léonie smote her hands together. “Voyons, I find it insupportable that no one can tell me anything about my son! Speak, you! Was that girl with M. le Marquis?—No, I will not be quiet, Rupert! Was she with him, Fletcher?”

“I beg your grace’s pardon?” Mr. Fletcher was all polite bewilderment.

“Do not beg my pardon again, or I shall become enraged!” Léonie said dangerously. “It is no use to tell me you do not know of any girl, for me I am well aware that M. le Marquis had one with him when he left England. That is not a thing extraordinary. It is true, is it not?”

Mr. Fletcher cast an appealing glance at Lord Rupert, who said testily: “Don’t stare at me, man! We know the girl was with his lordship.”

Mr. Fletcher bowed. “As your lordship says.”

“Well, has she gone to Dijon?”

“I could not say, my lord.”

Léonie eyed him with hostility. “Did she leave this house with M. le Marquis?”

“No, your grace. She was not with his lordship when he set forward on his journey.”

“There you are, my dear!” said Rupert. “Vidal’s got rid of her, and we may as well go home again before Avon gets wind of the affair.”

Léonie told Mr. Fletcher he might go, and when the door had closed behind him, she turned to Rupert with an expression of great anxiety on her face. “Rupert, it becomes more and more serious!”

“Devil a bit!” said his lordship cheerfully. “You can’t get away from it, the girl’s not with Vidal now, so I don’t see we’ve aught to worry over!”

“But Rupert, you do not understand at all! I have a very big fear that Dominique may have cast her off—in a rage, tu sais.”

Lord Rupert disposed his limbs more comfortably in his chair. “I shouldn’t wonder if he had,” he agreed. “It don’t concern us, thank the Lord!”

Léonie got up, and began to move about the room. “If he has done that it is a crime one does not forgive. I must find her.”

Lord Rupert blinked. “If she ain’t with that precious son of yours what do you want with her now?” he inquired.

“Do you think I will permit my son to abandon a girl in Paris?” Léonie said fiercely. “That is noble, yes! I tell you, I have been alone in a great city and there is nothing I do not know of what may happen to a girl who has no protector.”

“But you said this wench was a—”

“I may have said it, but that was because I was angry. I do not know what she is, and I will find her immediately. If Dominique has done her a wrong he shall marry her.”

Lord Rupert clasped his head in his hands. “Hang me, if I know what you’re about, Léonie!” he said. “Here’s me dragged out of England to help you save the Cub from an adventuress, as I thought, and now you say the boy’s to marry her!”

Léonie paid not the slightest heed to this. She went on pacing the room until suddenly an idea came to her, and she stopped short. “Rupert, Juliana is in Paris!”

“What of it?” said his lordship.

“But do you not see, that if Vidal has been staying here of course Juliana has met him?”

“Do you think she might know why the plaguey boy has gone off to Dijon?” inquired Rupert hopefully. “That’s what bothers me. Why Dijon?”

Léonie wrinkled her brow in a puzzled manner. “But why, Rupert, is it Dijon that bothers you? I find the whole of this affair so very strange and without reason that for Dominique to have gone to Dijon is a bagatelle.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Rupert said. “It’s such a devilish queer place to go to. Dijon! What in the fiend’s name would anybody want there? I’ll tell you what it is, Léonie, the boy’s behaving mighty oddly.” He shook his head. “The ninth earl was given to these turns, so they say. It’s a bad business.”

Léonie stared at him. Lord Rupert tapped his forehead significantly. Léonie said in great indignation: “Are you telling me that my son is mad?”

“We’ll hope he ain’t,” Rupert said pessimistically, “but you can’t deny he’s behaving in a manner no one would call sane. Dijon! Why, it’s absurd!”

“If you were not Monseigneur’s brother, Rupert, I should have one big quarrel with you. Mad! Voyons, he is not so mad as you, for you have not any sense at all. Let us go to find Juliana.”

They found, not Juliana, but her hostess, laboriously writing what seemed to be a very long letter. When they were ushered into her boudoir she displayed as much startled surprise as could be expected of anyone so habitually placid. She got up to embrace Léonie, almost falling upon her neck. “Mon Dieu, is it you, Léonie?” she said, with a fat gasp. Then she held out a checking hand. “Not my cousin Justin? Do not say my cousin Justin is here!” she implored.

“Lord, you wouldn’t see me here if he was in Paris!” said Rupert reassuringly.

“If Fanny is here, I cannot face her!” stated madame in palpitating tones. She pointed to her desk, and the scattered sheets of gilt paper. “I am writing to her now. Why have you come? I am glad, yes, but I do not know why you have come.”

“Glad, are you? Well, it don’t sound like it,” commented his lordship. “We’ve come chasing after that plaguey nephew of mine, and a devilish silly errand it is.”

Madame sank down on to a spindle-legged chair, and stared at him with her mouth open. “You know, then?” she faltered.

“Yes, yes, we know everything!” Léonie said. “Now tell me where is Dominique, Elisabeth? Please tell me quickly.”

“But I do not know!” cried madame, spreading out her two plump hands.

“Oh, peste!” said Léonie impatiently.

“Come now, that’s the only thing we do know,” said his lordship. “Vidal’s gone to Dijon.”

Madame looked from him to Léonie in blank bewilderment. “To Dijon? But why? Gracious God, why to Dijon?”

“Just what I said myself, cousin,” replied Rupert triumphantly. “I don’t say the boy hasn’t his reasons, but what the devil he can want in Dijon beats me.”

“Let me see Juliana,” interrupted the Duchess. “I think perhaps she will know where is my son, for he is fond of her, and I feel very certain that she has seen him.”

Madame gave a start. “Juliana?” she echoed hollowly. “Alas, then, you do not know!”

Lord Rupert looked at her with misgiving in his face. “Burn it, I believe you’re going to start a mystery now. What’s to do? Not that I want to know, for I’ve enough on my hands as it is, but you’d best tell us and so be done with it.”

Thus encouraged, madame delivered her terrific pronouncement: “Juliana has eloped with Vidal!”

The effect of this on her hearers was to bereave them, momentarily, of all power of speech. Léonie stood staring in astonished incredulity, and Lord Rupert’s jaw dropped perceptibly. Léonie found her tongue first.

“Bah, what a piece of nonsense!” she said. “I do not at all believe it!”

“Read that!” commanded madame dramatically, and handed her a crumpled sheet of paper.

It contained a brief message in Juliana’s sprawling characters: “My dear Tante, pray do not be in a taking, but I have gone with Vidal. I have No Time to write more, for I am in Desperate Haste. Juliana.”

“But—but it is not possible!” stammered Léonie, growing quite pale.

Lord Rupert snatched the letter unceremoniously out of her hand. “Here, let me read it!” he said. His eyes ran over the sheet. “Damme, if this doesn’t beat all!” he ejaculated. “Oh, there’s not a doubt about it: the boy’s gone stark, staring crazy.” He struck the paper with his hand. “It ain’t decent, Léonie! I’ve naught to say against him abducting this other wench: there’s no harm in that. But when he takes to running off with his cousin, blister it, it’s time he was clapped up!”

Mme. de Charbonne followed this rather imperfectly. “I do not understand. Vidal has eloped with Juliana, that is seen. But why, I ask you? Is it not permitted that they wed? Now they make a scandal, and Fanny will come here, and I am afraid of Fanny.”

Léonie, who had possessed herself of Juliana’s letter again, said stubbornly: “I do not believe it. Dominique does not love Juliana. There is a mistake. I remember, too, that Juliana is going to marry the Nobody.”

Madame de Charbonne said that she still did not understand. Upon the matter being made plain to her, she remarked thoughtfully: “Ah, that is the young Englishman, without doubt. He comes very often to see Juliana.”

“What, is Frederick Comyn in Paris, too, then?” demanded Rupert.

“That is the name,” nodded madame. “A young man tres comme il faut. But Juliana is going to marry Dominique.”

“No!” said Léonie firmly. “He does not want to, and he shall not.”

“But, my dear, he has eloped with her, and he must certainly marry her.”

“Lord, that’s nothing, Elisabeth!” said Rupert. “Juliana ain’t the only girl Vidal’s eloped with. I’ll tell you what it is, the boy’s a Bluebeard.”

“Stop saying that he has eloped with Juliana!” ordered Léonie, her eyes flashing. “I do not know why he has taken her away, but of a certainty he has a reason.”

“Taken her to Dijon, too,” said my lord thoughtfully. “Y’know, the more I think on it the less I believe in this Dijon rubbish. It don’t make sense. I can swallow the rest, but I’ll admit that worries me.”

“It is of all things the most incomprehensible,” agreed madame.

“But you are imbécile, Rupert! To go to Dijon, that is not a great affair! Many people go to Dijon: it is nothing!”

“Do they?” said his lordship sceptically. “Well, I never met anyone that did. Why should they? What’s to do at Dijon? Tell me that!”

“It is a town, Rupert, is it not? Then, of course, people go there. I do not find that part incomprehensible. But that Vidal should run away with Juliana—voyons, that is so incomprehensible that I do not believe it.” She turned to Madame de Charbonne. “Do not write to Fanny! Me, I will arrange everything.”

Madame sighed. “Very well, my dear. I do not want to write to Fanny, I am sure. It has been a very perplexing day, very énervant, I assure you. I ask myself, where, too, is the other girl? But that is not my affair, only that I think it very strange to depart without a word to me.”

“What other girl?” asked Rupert, puzzled.

“The girl that was the friend of Juliana. Juliana asked her to visit us. She was in Paris with her aunt, and Juliana invited her to stay in my house.”

Léonie brushed this aside. “I am not interested in Juliana’s friend. She is not at all a propos.”

“No, my dear, but I think it odd that she should go away like that.”

“Belike she’s gone with Vidal too,” Lord Rupert said sarcastically.

Llonie refused to be diverted by this artless suggestion. She had been thinking hard, and now said: “If the Nobody—what is his name, Rupert?—Comyn. I will remember. If M. Comyn is in Paris, I think Juliana has eloped with him. Naturally, she would not tell you that, Elisabeth. If Vidal is with them, it is, sans doute, to make it to appear quite respectable. They had fled, perhaps to Dijon, and Vidal went to—to—en chaperon, in effect.”

Lord Rupert listened to this in considerable astonishment. “Do you tell me VidaPs gone to play propriety?” he asked blankly. “Vidal? No, rabbit it, that’s too much! You’re the boy’s mother, and of course you’re bound to make the best of him, but to say he’s gone to a silly place like Dijon to be a duenna to Juliana—Lord, you must be besotted, my dear!” An irrepressible dimple peeped in Léonie’s cheek. “It is not perhaps very probable,” she admitted. “But he has not eloped with Juliana. I know he has not! It is all so strange that it makes my head ache, and I see that there is only one thing to do.”

Lord Rupert breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re a sensible woman, Léonie, ’pon my soul you are. If the luck favours us we’ll reach home before Avon gets back from Newmarket.” Léonie tied the strings of her cloak under her chin, and shot a mischievous look at his lordship. “Mon pauvre, we are not going home.”

Lord Rupert said disgustedly: “I might have known it. If ever there was a female with silly, wild notions in her head—”

“I am very sensible. You said so,” Léonie pointed out, twinkling. “We will start very early in the morning, Rupert, and go to Dijon.” She paused, and added buoyantly: “Du vrai, I find it fort amusant, you know. For it seems to me that my poor Dominique has now two ladies he must marry a l’instant, which is a thing not permitted. It does not amuse you, Rupert?”

“Amuse me?” gasped his lordship. “Amuse me to go junketing through France after that young devil and his pack of females? No, it don’t! Bedlam’s the place for Vidal, and damme, when I think of trying to explain all this to Avon I’ve a strong notion I’ll end there myself.” With which his lordship seized his hat and cane, and bidding his open-mouthed cousin a curt farewell, flung open the door for Léonie to pass out.

Chapter XVI

by the time Miss Challoner and Mr. Comyn reached Dijon, neither regarded the coming nuptials with anything but feelings of profound depression, although each was determined to be married as soon as was possible. Mr. Comyn was prompted by his sense of propriety, and Miss ChaEoner by her dread of the Marquis’s arrival.

They reached Dijon late in the day, and put up at the best inn. Miss Challoner desired Mr. Comyn to wait upon the English divine at once, but he was firm in refusing to go until the morning. He contended that it would be thought a very odd thing were he to demand to see the divine at the dinner-hour, and he informed Miss Challoner that if she supposed him to be afraid of my Lord Vidal, she quite mistook the matter. It was Miss Challoner’s wish to leave Dijon for Italy immediately the wedding was over. Mr. Comyn was quite agreeable, but if there were the least chance of the Marquis’s arrival, it would be more consonant with his dignity (he said) to await him in Dijon. He had no desire to escape a meeting with his lordship, and he pointed out to Miss Challoner that since Vidal was known to be deadly with his pistols, a hurried flight to Italy would savour very much of fright.

Miss Challoner, always reasonable, could appreciate the feelings which prompted Mr. Comyn to linger in Dijon, but dreaded the issue. She condemned the whole practice of duelling, and Mr. Comyn agreed that it was a stupid custom, and one that should be abolished.

On the morning following, he went to wait upon Mr. Leonard Hammond, who was staying with his young charge at a chateau about three miles distant from the town. Miss Challoner, left to her own devices, found herself nervously listening for the sound of wheels, and continually getting up to look out of the window. This would not do, she decided; and since she hardly expected Mr. Comyn to return before noon she tied on her hat, and went out for a walk. It may have been the state of mind she was in, but she could find little to interest her, and having looked at three milliners’ shops, and four mantua-makers, she went back to the inn to await Mr. Comyn’s return.

He came in shortly before noon. He was unaccompanied, and looked grave. Miss Challoner said anxiously: “Did you not find this Mr. Hammond, sir?”

Mr. Comyn carefully laid his hat and riding-whip on a chair. “I was fortunate enough to find the gentleman at the chateau,” he replied, “but I fear I have little dependence on him performing the rite of marriage for us.”

“Good God!” cried Miss Challoner. “Do you mean that he refuses?”

“Mr. Hammond felt, ma’am, certain qualms which, when I consider the extreme delicacy of the circumstances, I cannot deem altogether unreasonable. My request he could not but think a strange one, and in short, ma’am, I found him very loth to take a part in so equivocal an affair.”

Miss Challoner was conscious of a stab of impatience. “But you explained to him—you persuaded him, surely?”

“I endeavoured to do so, ma’am, but with indifferent success. Happily—or so I trust it may be found—I had my card about me, which in part reassured him as to my standing and credentials. I venture to think that had I been able to be private with him a little longer I might have prevailed with him. But, as we apprehended, he is a guest in the chateau, and his host—a gentleman of a choleric disposition—broke in on us with some demand which I, insufficiently conversant with the French tongue, was unable to understand. Mr. Hammond, not being desirous (as one might readily comprehend) of presenting to the Comte such a dubious visitor as I must have seemed, was at pains to be rid of me. I had nothing to do but to take my leave. I did so, with what grace I could assume under conditions which I found vastly disconcerting, and begged Mr. Hammond to be so good as to wait upon us here this afternoon.”

Miss Challoner had listened to this speech with great patience. At the end of it she said, trying not to sound waspish: “But will he, sir?”

“I am inclined to believe so, ma’am.” A smile disturbed the primness of Mr. Comyn’s face. “When he showed reluctance, I promised to return to the chateau to seek another interview with him. A needy divine, ma’am, who has the good fortune to be in charge of a young gentleman making the Grand Tour, has of necessity to be careful of the company he keeps. I, Miss Challoner, appeared to be of so disreputable a character that Mr. Hammond, at the mere hint of a second visit, acceded to my request. I venture to think that when he has made your acquaintance he will see the matter in a more favourable light.”

She had to laugh. “Of the pah—of us, sir, it is you who are the most respectable, I fear. If this provoking Mr. Hammond knows my—my lamentable story he will scarcely look on me with approval.”

“He does not, ma’am. Though not apt in the fabrication of lies, I was able to deceive the reverend gentlemen. With your leave, I will now bespeak luncheon.”

“I suppose there is nothing else to be done,” agreed Miss Challoner, accepting the situation.

Luncheon was served in the private parlour, but Miss Challoner’s appetite had forsaken her. She was so sure that the Marquis would pursue her that even an hour’s delay fretted her unbearably. Mr. Comyn said gently that he wished he could convince her of the impossibility of his lordship’s preventing the marriage. But Miss Challoner, having by now acquired a very fair knowledge of the Marquis’s temper, could not be convinced. Feeling, however, that her prospective bridegroom had already a good deal to put up with, she tried not to appear anxious. Had she but known it her consideration was wasted, for Mr. Comyn had a profound belief in the frailty of female nerves, and would have felt himself to be more master of the situation had he been obliged to allay her alarms. Her calm appeared to him to be the expression of an unimaginative nature, and instead of admiring her control, he wondered whether she was stupid, or merely phlegmatic.

Towards three o’clock Miss Challoner’s inward fears were justified. A clatter of hooves and carriage wheels announced the arrival of a chaise. Miss Challoner grew rather pale, and put out her hand towards Mr. Comyn. “It’s my lord,” she said unsteadily. “Please do not allow him to force you into a duel! I cannot bear to bring so much trouble on you!” She got up, twining her fingers together. “If only we were safe married!” she said despairingly.

“Madam, if this is indeed his lordship, I propose, to save you from his importunities, to inform him that we are married,” said Mr. Comyn. He too rose, and glanced towards the door. A voice there was no mistaking was heard outside, raised in a peremptory demand. Mr. Comyn’s lips tightened. He looked at Miss Challoner for a moment. “It seems that you were right, ma’am,” he said drily. “Do you desire me to say that we are already wed?”

“Yes,” she answered. “No—I don’t know. Yes, I think.”

A quick step was coming down the passage; the handle of the door was twisted violently round, and the Marquis of Vidal stood on the threshold, booted and spurred, and with raindrops glistening on his greatcoat.

His gaze swept the room, and came to rest on Miss Challoner, standing motionless beside her chair. “Ah, Miss Challoner!” he said. “So I find you, do I?” He strode forward, casting aside the riding-whip he carried, and gripped her by the shoulders. “If you thought to escape me so easily, you were wrong, my dear.”

Mr. Comyn said in a voice of polite coldness: “Will your lordship have the goodness to unhand my wife?”

The grip on Miss Challoner’s shoulders tightened so suddenly that she winced. The Marquis glared at Mr. Comyn, his breath coming short and fast. “What?” he thundered. “Your wife?”

Mr. Comyn bowed. “The lady has done me the honour to wed me this day, my lord.”

The Marquis’s fierce eyes reached Miss Challoner. “Is that true? Mary, answer me! Is it true?”

She stared up at him; she was as white as her tucker. “Perfectly, sir. I am married to Mr. Comyn.”

“Married?” he repeated. “Married?” he almost flung her from him. “By God, then, you shall be widowed soon enough!” he swore.

There was murder in his face; one stride brought him to Mr. Comyn, who felt instinctively for his sword-hilt. He had no time to draw steel; my lord’s lean fingers had him by the throat, choking the life out of him. “You dogl You little damned cur!” my lord said through his shut teeth.

Miss Challoner, seeing the two men swaying together in the throes of a desperate struggle, started forward, but before she could reach the combatants a piercing scream came from the doorway, and Miss Marling, just arrived on the scene, flew across the room, and cast herself into the fray.

“You shall not! you shall not!” shrieked Miss Marling. “Let him go, you wicked, wicked brute!”

Miss Challoner, who saw that Mr. Comyn was hopelessly over-weighted, looked round for a suitable weapon. She caught sight of the water-jug still standing on the table, and with her usual presence of mind picked it up. “Stand aside, Juliana!” she said coolly, and dashed the water impartially over both men. Miss Marling, having paid no heed to the warning, also received her share, and fell back, gasping.

The sudden shock must have sobered his lordship, for he released his grip on Mr. Comyn’s throat, and put up his hands to wipe the wet out of his eyes. Mr. Comyn went staggering backwards, feeling his neck, and coughing. Miss Marling ran to him, sobbing: “Frederick! oh, my poor Frederick, are you hurt?”

It was to be seen that Mr. Comyn had lost his prim punctiliousness. He thrust her off unceremoniously, and said angrily: “Hurt? No!” He tried to straighten his damaged neckcloth. He was in as great a rage as the Marquis by this time, and stuttered a little in his haste to utter his challenge. “Swords or pistols?” he demanded. “Choose your weapon, and choose it quickly.”

“No!” cried Juliana, trying to fling her arms round him. “Vidal, you shall not! Frederick, please, please, be calm!”

He disengaged himself from her clinging hands. “Madam, I have nothing whatsoever to say to you,” he snapped. “Be good enough to stand away from me! Well, my lord? Which is it to be?”

The Marquis was looking at Miss Challoner with an odd smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “Mary, you little wretch!” he said softly. He turned his head, and his eyes hardened again as they rested on Mr. Comyn’s pale countenance. “Either will do your business for you, you treacherous cur!” he said. “Choose which you will.”

Juliana wrung her hands. “Oh, you’ll kill him! I know you will!” she wailed.

“I shall,” said his lordship silkily.

Miss Challoner grasped the edge of the mantelpiece. “This has gone far enough,” she said. “Please listen to me for a moment.”

Mr. Comyn, who was struggling with his top-boots, said quickly: “Nothing you can say will deter me from fighting his lordship! Pray hold your peace! We will have this out with swords, my lord, and I trust that I may be able to rid the world of one whose instincts are more those of a beast than of a gentleman of breeding.”

“Oh, but you will never succeed in killing him!” almost wept Miss Marling. “Oh, Frederick, I am sorry for everything! Don’t fight Vidal! I implore you not to!”

Mr. Comyn turned a flint-like face towards her. “Madam, I have already informed you that I have nothing to say to you. I do not know why you are here, but you come in excellent time to felicitate me. Miss Challoner has done me the honour to marry me.”

Miss Marling clutched at a chair-back for support. “Married?” she faltered. “Oh, oh, oh!”

Only Miss Challoner paid any heed to this fit of mild hysterics. The Marquis took off his greatcoat, coat, and boots, and stood in his shirt and breeches, testing the flexibility of his slim blade. The Dresden ruffles of his shirt fell over his hands, but Mr. Comyn rolled up his own sleeves with business-like haste. He cast his lordship a look of angry dislike, and as he pulled his rapier from the scabbard, he said in a low, unsteady voice: “You have called me by some names I will presently force down your throat, sir. I take leave to tell you that your persecution of the lady who is my wife—”

But that fatal word fanned the flame of his lordship’s passion. He said, white-lipped: “Damn you to hell, you shall not long call her so!” He thrust the table back against the wall, and turned. “On guard!”

“I am at your service,” said Mr. Comyn.

There was the briefest of salutes; then the blades hissed together with a venom that brought Miss Challoner from Juliana’s side in a flash. She cried out: “Shame! shame on you both! Put up! put up! I am not married, no, and shall not be to either of you!”

Her words fell on deaf ears. The duel was too desperate an affair to permit of either man’s listening to her. Each was in a white heat of fury; each meant to make an end of the other.

The rapier was not Vidal’s weapon, but his wrist had great strength and cunning, and he fought with a dashing brilliance disconcerting to the more careful fencer. His sword play was dangerous, he took risks, but drove his opponent hard. Mr. Comyn’s fencing was neat, and it was plain he had been well-taught, but my lord had a pace which he lacked, and broke through his guard tune after time. He recovered always, and by some dexterous parry escaped the death that threatened, but he was hard-pressed, and the sweat rolled down his forehead in great drops.

Juliana, realizing what was going on, abandoned her hysterics, and cowered in the chair hiding her face in her hands, and sobbing. Miss Challoner stood beside her, intently watching the swift thrust and parry of the swords.

“Make them stop! Oh, good God, can no one make them stop?” wept Juliana, shuddering as steel rang against steel in a scuffle of blades.

“I hope very much that they will make an end of each other!” said Miss Challoner, stiff with anger.

“How can you say such a thing?” gasped Juliana. “It is all your fault! Oh, but married! married!”

The stockinged feet padded on the bare floor; Mr. Comyn, disengaging above the wrist, was forced back hard against the table. Miss Challoner saw his guard waver, and knew all at once that he was spent. The Marquis followed up his advantage ruthlessly, and Miss Challoner, forgetting her pious wish, seized one of the discarded coats, and ran in on the swords, catching at them through the heavy cloth. She threw herself in the way as the Marquis lunged; Mr. Comyn’s blade was entangled in the coat, but his lordship’s point flashed under it, driven by the whole force of his arm. It seemed as though to check were an impossibility; Juliana, peeping through her fingers, gave a scream of warning and horror. The Marquis’s point glanced up Miss Challoner’s arm, ripping her gown at the shoulder, and was wrenched back.

The sword went spinning, my lord caught Miss Challoner’s swaying form in his arms, his face as white as hers. “Mary! Mary!” he said hoarsely. My God, what have I done?”

“Murderer! You have killed her!” panted Mr. Comyn, and came up close as though to snatch Miss Challoner away from him.

He was thrust aside. “Stand off from her!” the Marquis shot at him. “Mary, look at me! Mary, my little love, my precious girl, I’ve not killed you!”

Miss Challoner, who had half fainted, more from shock than actual hurt, opened her eyes and achieved a wan smile. “It’s nothing,” she whispered. “The—the—veriest pin-prick. Oh, what did you call me?”

The Marquis lifted her quite off her feet, and carried her to the armchair just vacated by Juliana. He put her gently down in it, and saw the red stain at the neck of her gown. Over his shoulder he threw an order at Mr. Comyn. “Get the flask from my greatcoat!”

Juliana cried: “Oh, there is blood on her dress! Mary, are you dreadfully hurt?”

Without the smallest hesitation the Marquis ripped open the front of Mary’s grey gown, and laid bare the injured shoulder. It was a very slight wound, the sword point having caused no more than a long scratch, but it was bleeding a little. Mary tried to pull her gown up over it, repeating that it was nothing, but was told not to be a fool. This was very much in his lordship’s usual manner, and she could not forbear a smile.

“No, it’s only a scratch,” Vidal said, with a sigh of relief. He pulled his handkerchief from his breeches pocket and bound the wound up deftly. “Little fool!” he scolded. “Do you know no better than to run in on a fight? You might have been killed!”

“I thought I was going to be,” said Miss Challoner in rather an uncertain voice. She lifted her hand to her head. “I feel a little dizzy. I shall be well in a moment.”

Mr. Comyn, whose face now wore a very thoughtful expression, came to my lord’s elbow with the flask of brandy. Vidal snapped it open, and put it to Mary’s lips, his other arm encircling her. “Come, drink this!” he said.

Mary tried to push it away. “Oh, no, I so very much dislike itl I am better now—truly, I am better now!”

“Do as I bid you!” commanded his lordship curtly. “You know me well enough to be sure I’ll make you.”

Mr. Comyn said protestingly: “Really, sir, if she does not want it—”

“Go to the devil!” said his lordship.

Miss Challoner meekly sipped a small quantity of the brandy, and raised her eyes to see the Marquis smiling down at her with so much tenderness in his face that she hardly recognized him. “Good girl!” he said, and dropped a light kiss on her hair.

His eye fell on Mr. Comyn again, and hardened. He removed his arm from about Miss Challoner, and stood up. “You may have married her,” he said fiercely, “but she is mine, do you hear me? She was always mine! You—!

do you think I shall let you take her? She may be ten times your wife, but, by God, you shall never have her!”

Mr. Comyn, having regained control over his temper, showed no sign of losing it again. “As to that, sir, I believe a word with you alone would be timely.” He looked fleetingly at Juliana, who was standing by the window, her face quite rigid. “Juliana—Miss Marling—” he said.

She gave a shudder. “Do not speak to me!” she said. “Oh, Frederick, Frederick, how could you do it? I did not mean a word that I said! You should have known I did not! I hope I never set eyes on you again!”

Mr. Comyn turned away from her to Mary, who was trying to collect her scattered wits. “Madam, I believe nothing will serve now but frankness. But I await your pleasure.” She got up, steadying herself with a hand on the arm of the chair. “Do what seems best to you,” she said faintly. “I must be alone a little while. I am not quite myself yet. I’ll go up to my chamber. For God’s sake, gentlemen, let there be no more fighting. I am not worth it.”

“Juliana, go with her!” said Vidal sharply. Miss Challoner shook her head. “Please let me be alone. I don’t need Juliana, or anyone.”

“I’ll not go!” Juliana said. “If she is hurt I vow it serves her right! She stole Frederick from me by a hateful trick, and I wish her joy of him, and she shan’t have him!”

Miss Challoner gave a little laugh that broke in the middle, and went to the door. Mr. Comyn opened it for her to pass out, and what seemed to be the entire staff of the inn was disclosed in the passage. The landlord and his wife, two serving-maids, a cook, and three ostlers, were all gathered round the door, and had evidently been listening to everything that had been going on inside the parlour. They looked very sheepish upon the door being so suddenly opened, and dispersed in a hurry. Mr. Comyn said sarcastically that he was happy to be a source of so much interest, but since he spoke in English no one understood him. The landlord, who had stood his ground, began to say that so scandalous a fracas in a respectable house could not be permitted. Lord Vidal turned his head, and spoke one soft, short phrase. The landlord looked very much taken aback, excused himself, and withdrew.

Meanwhile, Miss Challoner had walked straight past the group of servants, down the passage to the coffee-room, out of which the stairs rose to the upper floor. She entered it, holding her torn dress together, in time to hear a jovial voice say in English: “Burn it, the place is deserted! Hey, there! House!”

Miss Challoner looked quickly towards the door. A tall, rakish man of middle age was standing there, his Rockelaure thrown open to display a rich suit of purple cloth with gold lacing, and a fine flowered waistcoat. He did not perceive Miss Challoner, and conscious of her dishevelled appearance, she drew back into the ill-lit passage. The landlord, hearing the shout, came hurrying past her, and was greeted by a fluent demand to know what the devil ailed the place that there wasn’t so much as a groom to be seen.

The landlord’s apologies and explanations were cut short by the somewhat tempestuous entrance of a copper-headed lady in a gown of green taffeta, and a cloak clutched round her by one small hand. “It is not at all deserted, because my son is here,” asserted this lady positively. “I told you we should find him, Rupert. Voyons, I am very glad we came to Dijon.”

“Well, he ain’t here so far as I can see,” replied his lordship. “Damme, if I can make out what this fellow’s talking about!”

“Of course, he is here! I have seen his chaise! Tell me at once, you, where is the English monsieur?”

Miss Challoner’s hand stole to her cheek. This imperious and fascinating little lady must be my lord’s mother. She cast a glance about her for a way of escape, and seeing a door behind her, pushed it open, and stepped into what seemed to be some sort of a pantry.

The landlord was trying to explain that there were a great many English people in his house, all fighting duels or having hysterics. Miss Challoner heard Lord Rupert say: “What’s that? Fighting? Then I’ll lay my life Vidal is here! Well, I’m glad we’ve not come to this devilish out-of-the-way place for nothing, but if Vidal’s in that sort of a humour, Léonie, you’d best keep out of it.”

The Duchess’s response to this piece of advice was to demand to be taken immediately to her son, and the landlord, by now quite bewildered by the extremely odd people who had all chosen to visit his hostelry at the same time, threw up his hands in an eloquent gesture, and led the way to the private parlour.

Miss Challoner, straining her ears to catch what was said, heard Lord Vidal exclaim: “Thunder an’ Turf, it’s my mother! What, Rupert too? What the devil brings you here?”

Lord Rupert answered: “That’s rich, ’pon my soul it is!”

Then the Duchess’s voice broke in, disastrously clear and audible. “Dominique, where is that girl? Why did you run off with Juliana? What have you done with that other one whom I detest infinitely already? Mon fils, you must marry her, and I do not know what Monseigneur will say, but I am very sure that at last you have broken my heart. Oh, Dominique, I did not want you to wed such an one as that!”

Miss Challoner waited for no more. She slipped out of the pantry, and went through the coffee-room to the stairs. In her sunny bedchamber, looking out on to the street, she sank down on a chair by the window, trying to think how she could escape. She found that she was crying, and angrily brushed away the tears.

Outside, the Duchess’s chaise was being driven round to the stables, and a huge, lumbering coach, piled high with baggage, was standing under her window. The driver had mounted the box, but was leaning over to speak to a fat gentleman carrying a cloak-bag and a heavy coat. Miss Challoner started up, looked more closely at the coach, and ran to the door.

One of the abigails who had lately had her ear glued to the parlour door, was crossing the upper landing. Miss Challoner called to her to know what was the coach at the door. The abigail stared, and said she supposed it would be the diligence from Nice.

“Where does it go?” Miss Challoner asked, trembling with suppressed anxiety.

“Why, to Paris, bien sûr, madame,” replied the girl, and was surprised to see Miss Challoner dart back into her room. She emerged again in a few moments, her cloak caught hastily round her, her reticule, stuffed with her few belongings, on her arm, and hastened downstairs.

No one was in the coffee-room, and she went across it to the front door. The guard of the diligence had just swung himself up into his place, but when he saw Miss Challoner hailing him, he came down again, and asked her very civilly what she desired.

She desired a place in the coach. He ran an appraising eye over her as he said that this could be arranged, and asked whither she was bound.

“How much money is needed for me to travel as far as Paris?” Miss Challoner inquired, colouring faintly.

He named a sum which she knew to be beyond her slender means. Swallowing her pride, she told him what money she had at her disposal, and asked how far she could travel with it. The guard named, rather brutally, Pont-de-Moine, a town some twenty-five miles distant from Dijon. He added that she would have enough left in her purse to pay for a night’s lodging. She thanked him, and since at the moment she did not care where she went as long as she could escape from Dijon, she said that she would journey as far as Pont-de-Moine.

“We shall arrive before ten,” said the guard, apparently thinking this a matter for congratulation.

“Good heavens, not till ten o’clock?” exclaimed Miss Challoner, aghast at such slow progress.

“The diligence is a fast diligence,” said the guard offendedly. “It will be very good time. Where is your baggage, mademoiselle?”

When Miss Challoner confessed that she had none, he obviously thought her a very queer passenger, but he let down the steps for her to mount into the coach, and accepted the money she handed him.

In another minute the driver’s whip cracked, and the coach began to move ponderously forward over the cobbles. Miss Challoner heaved a sigh of relief, and squeezed herself into a place between a farmer smelling of garlic and a very fat woman with a child on her knee.

Chapter XVII

upon the Duchess of Avon’s entry into the parlour, Vidal had come quickly towards her, and caught her in his arms. But her opening speech made him let her go, and the welcoming light in his eyes fled. His heavy frown, so rarely seen by her, descended on his brow. He stepped back from Léonie, and shot a scowling look at Lord Rupert. “Why did you bring my mother here?” he said. “Can you not keep from meddling, curse you?”

“Easily, never fear it!” retorted Rupert. “Fiend seize you, d’ye think I want to go chasing all over France for the pleasure of seeing you? Bring your mother? Lord, I’ve been begging and imploring her to come home ever since we started out! God bless my soul, is that young Comyn?” He put up his glass, and stared through it. “Now what the plague are you doing here?” he inquired.

Léonie put her hand on Vidal’s arm. “It is of no use to be enraged, mon enfant. You have done a great wickedness. Where is that girl?”

“If you are speaking of the lady who was Miss Challoner,” replied Vidal icily, “she is upstairs.”

Léonie said quickly: “Was Miss Challoner? You have married her? Oh, Dominique, no!”

“You are entirely in the right, madame. I have not married her. She is married to Comyn,” said his lordship bitterly.

The effect of this pronouncement on the Duchess was unexpected. She at once turned to Mr. Comyn, who was trying to put on his coat again as unobtrusively as possible, and caught his hand in both her own. “Voyons, I am so very glad! It is you who are Mr. Comyn? I hope you will be very happy, m’sieur. Oh, but very happy!”

Juliana gave a strangled cry at this. “How can you be so cruel, Aunt Léonie? He is betrothed to me!”

“Damme, if he’s betrothed to you how came you to go off with Vidal?” demanded Lord Rupert reasonably.

“I didn’t!” Juliana declared.

“I said it was not so!” said her grace triumphantly. “You see, Rupert!”

“No, I’ll be pinked if I do,” replied his lordship. “If it was Comyn you ran off with, why did you say you’d gone with Vidal, in that devilish silly note of yours?”

“I didn’t run off with Frederick! You don’t understand, Uncle Rupert.”

“Then whom in the fiend’s name did you run off with?” said his lordship.

“With Vidal—at least, I went with him, but of course I did not elope, if that is what you mean! I hate Vidal! I wouldn’t marry him for the world.”

“No, my girl, you’d not have the chance,” struck in the Marquis.

Léonie at last released Mr. Comyn’s hand, which all this tune she had been warmly clasping. “Do not quarrel, mes enfants. I find all this very hard to understand. Please explain to me, one of you!”

“They’re all mad, every one of ’em,” said Rupert with conviction. He had put up his glass again, and was observing his nephew’s attire through it. “Blister it, the boy can’t spend one week without being in a fresh broil! Swords, eh? Well, I’m not saying that ain’t better than those barbarous pistols of yours, but why in thunder you must be for ever fighting.—Where’s the corpse?”

“Never mind about that!” interrupted Léonie impatiently. “I will have all of this explained to me at once!” She turned once more to Mr. Comyn, who had by now pulled on his boots and was feeling more able to face her. She smiled engagingly at him. “My son is in a very bad temper and Juliana is not at all sensible, so I shall ask you to tell me what has happened.”

Mr. Comyn bowed. “I shall be happy to oblige you, ma’am.

In fact, when your grace entered this room, I was about to make a communication of a private nature to his lordship.”

Vidal, who had gone over to the fireplace, and was staring down into the red embers, lifted his head. “What is it you have to say to me?”

“My lord, it is a communication I should have desired to impart to you alone, but if you wish I will speak now.”

“Tell me and be done with it,” said my lord curtly, and resumed his study of the fire.

Mr. Comyn bowed again. “Very well, sir. I must first inform your lordship that when I had the honour of making Miss Challoner’s acquaintance at the house of Mme. de Char-bonne in Paris—”

Léonie had sat down in the armchair, but started up again. “Mon Dieu, the friend of Juliana! Why did I not perceive that that must be so?”

“Because if anyone spoke a word about aught save Dijon you would not listen,” said Rupert severely. “And that reminds me, Vidal: what in thunder brought you here? I’ve been puzzling over it all the way, and stap me if I can make it out.”

“I had a reason.” Vidal answered briefly.

“It does not matter in the least,” said her grace. “But it was very stupid of me not to see that of course the friend of Juliana must be this Mary Challoner. It was stupid of you too, Rupert. More stupid.”

“Stupid of me? Lord, how the devil should I guess Vidal would take his—” He encountered a sudden fiery glance from his nephew, and stopped short. “Oh, very well!” he said. “I’m mum.”

“So you went to Tante Elisabeth?” cried Juliana. “I see!”

Mr. Comyn, who had waited in vain for the interruptions to cease, saw that he must be firm if he wished to make himself heard in this vociferous family. He cleared his throat, and continued loudly: “As I was saying, my lord, when I first had the honour of making Miss Challoner’s better acquaintance I was under the impression that not only was your lordship’s suit disagreeable to her, but that you yourself were constrained to wed the lady out of consideration—which I confess surprised me—for her reputation, and were not prompted by any of the tenderer feelings. Being convinced of this, I had little compunction, upon Miss Marling’s sundering our secret betrothal, in offering for Miss Challoner’s hand; an arrangement which I believed would be preferable to her than a marriage with your lordship.”

My Lord Rupert, who had been listening in rapt admiration to this speech, said in what he imagined to be a whisper:

“Wonderful, ain’t it, Léonie? Never heard aught to equal it. The boy always talks like that, y’know.”

Juliana said throbbingly: “Indeed, Frederick? And the marriage was, I need hardly ask, more to your taste than our contract?”

“Madam,” replied Mr. Comyn, looking steadily across at her, “when you informed me that you had no desire to wed one so far removed from your world as myself, it mattered very little to me whom I married. I had for Miss Challoner a profound respect; and on this I believed it would be possible to lay the foundations of a tolerably happy marriage. Miss Challoner was so obliging as to accept of my offer, and we set forth immediately for this town with what speed we could muster.”

“Hold a minute!” besought Rupert, suddenly alert. “Why Dijon? Tell me that!”

“You take the devil of a time arriving at the point of your story,” struck in the Marquis impatiently. “Be a little more brief, and to hell with your periods.”

“I will endeavour, my lord. Upon the journey—”

“Damn it, am I never to know why you came to Dijon?” said Rupert despairingly.

“Hush, Rupert! Let Mr. Comyn speak!” reproved Léonie.

“Speak? The dratted fellow’s never ceased speaking for the past ten minutes,” complained his lordship. “Well, go on, man, go on!”

“Upon the journey,” repeated Mr. Comyn with unwearied patience, “I was gradually brought to realize that Miss Challoner’s affections were more deeply involved than I had supposed. Yet I could not but agree with her that a marriage with your lordship would be unsuitable in the extreme. My determination to marry her remained unshaken, for I believed your lordship to be indifferent to her. But when the late accident occurred it was apparent to anyone of the meanest intelligence that you felt for the lady all the most tender passions which any female could wish for in her future husband.”

The Marquis was watching him intently. “Well, man? Well?”

The question was destined to remain unanswered. A fresh interruption occurred. The landlord scratched on the door, and opened it to say: “There is another English monsieur desires to see M. Comyn. He calls himself M. Hammond.”

“Tell him to go to the devil!” said Lord Rupert irritably.

“Never heard of the fellow in my life! He can’t come in now.”

“Hammond?” said the Marquis sharply. He strode up to Mr. Comyn, his eyes suddenly eager. “Then you’ve not done it? Quick, man, it was a lie?”

“It was a lie, my lord,” answered Mr. Comyn quietly.

Lord Rupert listened open-mouthed to this interchange, and glanced hopelessly at the Duchess. Her eyes had begun to twinkle, and she said frankly: “It is quite incomprehensible, mon vieux. Me, I know nothing, and no one tells me.”

“Plague take it, I won’t have it!” roared his lordship, goaded beyond endurance. “What’s a lie? Who’s this fellow Hammond? Oh, I’ll end in Bedlam, devil a doubt!”

“Shall I tell the English monsieur that M. Comyn is engaged?” asked the landlord doubtfully.

“Bring him in here at once!” commanded Rupert. “Don’t stand there goggling, fatwit! Go and fetch him!”

“Yes, go and fetch htm,” said the Marquis. He was still looking at Mr. Comyn, but he was frowning no longer. “Good God, Comyn, do you know how near to death you have been?” he asked softly.

Mr. Comyn smiled. “I am aware, my lord. The heat of the moment—excusable, you will agree—being happily past, I can make allowances for the very natural fury of a man deeply in love.”

“Mighty good of you,” said his lordship with a rather rueful grin. “I’ll admit I’m a thought too ready with my hands.” He turned as the door was once more opened to admit a gentleman dressed in a black habit and bands, and a Ramillies wig. “Mr. Hammond?” he said. “In a very good hour, sir!”

The cleric looked him over with patent disapproval. “I have not the pleasure, I think, of your acquaintance, sir,” he said frigidly. “I am come here, much against my will, at the request of Mr.—ah—Comyn.”

“But it is I who need your services, sir,” said his lordship briskly. “My name’s Alastair. You are, I believe, making the Grand Tour in charge of Lord Edward Crewe?”

“I am, sir, but I fail to understand what interest this can be to you.”

Light broke upon Lord Rupert with dazzling radiance. Suddenly he smote his knee and called out: “By the holy Peter, I have it! The man’s a parson, and that is why you came to Dijon! Lord, it’s as plain as the nose on your face!”

Mr. Hammond looked at him with acute dislike. “You have the advantage of me, sir.”

“Eh?” said Rupert. “Oh, my name’s Alastair.” Mr. Hammond flushed angrily. “Sir, if this is a pleasantry it is one that in no way amuses me. If you summoned me here, Mr. Comyn, for some boorish jest—”

Léonie got up, and came towards him. “But do not be enraged, m’sieur,” she said kindly. “No one jests, I assure you. Will you not be seated?”

Mr. Hammond thawed a little. “I thank you, ma’am. If I might know whom I have the honour of addressing—?”

“Oh, her name’s Alastair, too,” said Rupert, who was fast lapsing into a rollicking mood.

Mr. Comyn intervened hastily as the divine showed signs of deep offence. “Permit me, my lord! Let me make you known to her grace the Duchess of Avon, sir. Also her grace’s son, my Lord Vidal, and her grace’s brother-in-law, Lord Rupert Alastair.”

Mr. Hammond recoiled perceptibly, and stared in horror at the Marquis. “Do I understand that this is none other than that Marquis of Vidal who—sir, if I had known, no persuasion would have sufficed to draw me into this house!” The Marquis’s brows lifted. “My good sir,” he said, “you are not sent for to condemn my morals, but to marry me to a certain lady at present staying in this inn.”

Léonie cried out, aghast: “But you cannot, Dominique! You said that she is married to M. Comyn!”

“So I thought, madame, but she is not.”

“Sir,” said Mr. Hammond very furiously; “I shall perform no marriage service!”

Lord Rupert looked at him through his quizzing glass. “Who is this fellow?” he inquired haughtily. “I don’t like him, stap me if I do!”

“Dominique,” Léonie said urgently, “I cannot talk to you here, with all these people. You say you will marry this girl, but it seems to me that it is not all necessary, for first she runs away with you, and then with M. Comyn, so that I see very well she is like that mother and sister whom I have met.”

He took her hands. “Maman, when you have seen her you will know that she is not like them. I am going to marry her.” He drew her over to the window, and said gently: “Ma chère, you told me to fall in love, did you not?”

“Not with a girl like this one,” she replied, with a small sob.

“You will like her,” he persisted. “Egad, she’s after your own heart, maman! She shot me in the arm.”

“Voyons, do you think that is what I like?” Léonie said indignantly.

“You’d have done it yourself, my dear.” He paused, staring out of the window. She watched him anxiously, and after a moment he turned his head and looked down at her. “Madame, I love her,” he said curtly. “If I can induce her to take me—”

“What’s this? Induce her! I find you absurd, mon enfant.”

He smiled faintly. “She ran off with Comyn sooner than wed me, nevertheless.”

“Where is she?” Léonie asked abruptly.

“In her bed-chamber. There was an accident. When Comyn and I had our little affair, she threw herself between us, and my sword scratched her.”

“Oh, mon Dieu!” Léonie exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “It is not enough to abduct her! No, you must wound her also! You are incorrigible!”

“Will you see her, maman?”

“I will see her, yes, but I promise nothing. Dominique, have you thought of Monseigneur? He will never, never permit it! You know he will not.”

“He cannot stop it, madame. If it leads to an estrangement between us I am sorry for it, but my mind is made up.” He pressed her hand. “Come to her now, ma chère.” He led her back into the room. “Comyn, since you know Miss Challoner’s room and I do not, will you have the goodness to escort my mother to her?”

Mr. Comyn, who was talking earnestly to Mr. Hammond, turned at once, and bowed, “I shall be happy to do so, sir.”

Rupert called out: “Hey, where are you off to, Léonie? Tell me, do we spend the night in this place?”

“I don’t know,” Léonie answered. “I am going to make the acquaintance of this Mademoiselle Challoner.”

She went out, followed by Mr. Comyn, and his lordship shook his head gloomily. “It won’t do, Vidal. You can talk your mother over, but if you think your father will stand this you don’t know him. Lord, I wish I were well out of it!” He became aware of his nephew’s coatless and bootless state. “For God’s sake, boy, put your clothes on!” he begged.

Vidal laughed, and sat down to pull on his boots. His uncle observed them through his glass with considerable interest. “Did Haspener make those for you, Vidal?”

“Lord, no!” said the Marquis scornfully. “What, does he make yours still? These are a pair of Martin’s.”

“Martin, eh? I’ve a mind to let him make me a pair. I don’t like your coats, I don’t like your stock-buckle, your hats have too rakish a cock for a man of my years, your waistcoats are damned unimaginative, but one thing I’ll allow: your boots are the best made in the town, ay, and the highest polished. What does your fellow use on ’em? I’ve tried a blacking made with champagne, but it ain’t as good as you’d expect.”

Mr. Hammond broke in on this with unconcealed impatience. “Sir, is this a moment in which to discuss the rival merits of your bootmakers? Lord Vidal! Finding me adamant, Mr. Comyn has favoured me with an explanation of this extraordinary situation.”

“He has, has he?” said the Marquis, looking round for his coat.

“Devilish fluent, he was,” nodded Lord Rupert. “Y’know, Vidal, it’s a bad business, but you can’t marry the girl. There’s the name to be thought on, and what’s more, Justin.”

Mr. Hammond cast him a fulminating glance, but addressed himself to the Marquis. “My lord, his explanation leaves me horrified, I may say aghast, at the impropriety of your lordship’s behaviour. My instinct, sir, is to wash my hands of the whole affair. If I relent, it is out of no desire to oblige one whose mode of life is abhorrent to me, but out of compassion for the unfortunate young female whose fair name you have sullied, and in the interests of morality.”

Lord Rupert stopped swinging his eyeglass, and said indignantly: “Damme, I’d not be married by this fellow if I were you, Vidal. Not that I’m saying you should be married at all, for the thing’s preposterous.”

Vidal shrugged. “What do you suppose I care for his opinion of me so long as he does what I want?”

“Well, I don’t know,” said his lordship. “Things are come to a pretty pass, so they are, when any plaguey parson takes it on himself to preach a damned sermon to your face. Why, in my father’s time—you never knew him: devilish badtempered man he was—in his time, I say, if the chaplain said aught he didn’t like—and from the pulpit, mind you!—he’d throw his snuff-box at him, or anything else he had to hand ... Now what’s to do?”

The Duchess had come back into the room in a hurry. She is not there, mon fils,” she announced, not entirely without relief.

“What?” Vidal said quickly. “Not there?”

“She is not in the inn. I do not know where she is. No one knOWS.”

The Marquis almost brushed past her, and went out. Léonie sighed, and looked at Rupert. “I cannot help being a little glad that she has gone,” she confessed. “But why does she run away so much? I find it not at all easy to understand.”

Juliana, who had been sitting for a long time by the fire, staring into it, now raised her voice. “You don’t want Vidal to marry her, Aunt Léonie, but indeed she is the very one for him. She loves him, too.”

“Eh bien, if she loves him I understand less than ever why she runs away.”

“She thinks she is not good enough for him,” said Juliana.

Mr. Hammond picked up his hat. “Since I apprehend that the unfortunate female I came here to serve has departed, I shall beg to take my leave. To perform this marriage service would have been vastly repugnant to me, and I can only be thankful that the need for it no longer exists.”

The Duchess’s large eyes surveyed him critically. “If you are going, m’sieur, it is a very good thing, for I find you infinitely de trop, and in a little while I shall be out of all patience with you.”

Mr. Hammond’s jaw dropped perceptibly at this unexpected severity, and he became extremely red about the gills. Lord Rupert pressed his hat and cane upon him with great promptitude, and lounged over to open the door. “Outside, Sir Parson!” he said cheerfully.

“I shall relieve your grace of my unwelcome presence at once,” announced Mr. Hammond awfully, and bowed.

“Never mind your civilities,” recommended his lordship. “They come a trifle late. But one word in your ear, my buck! If you bandy my nephew’s name about in connection with this affair, my friend Lord Manton will look for another bear-leader for his cub. Do you take me?”

“Your threats, sir, leave me unmoved,” replied Mr. Hammond. “But I can assure your lordship that my one desire is to forget the prodigiously disagreeable events of this day.” He grasped his cane tighter in his hand, tucked his hat under his arm, and went out, very erect and stiff.

Lord Rupert kicked the door to. “Let’s hope that’s the last we’ll see of that fellow,” he said. “Now what’s all this about Vidal’s wench? Gone off, has she? Well, that’s one problem off our hands.”

“That is just what I thought,” sighed the Duchess. “But Dominique is in love with her, and I fear very much he will try to find her, and if he does he says he will marry her, which is a thing I find very worrying.”

“Marry her? What does the boy want to marry her for?” asked his lordship, puzzled. “It don’t seem sense to me. First the girl’s off with him, then she has a fancy for young Comyn—oh, are you there, my boy? Well, it makes no odds—and now I’ll be pinked if she hasn’t gone off again, though whom she’s gone with this time is beyond me.”

Mr. Comyn said gravely: “Your lordship is mistaken in Miss Challoner. I can explain—”

“No, no, don’t do that, my boy!” said Rupert hastily. “We’ve had enough explanations. What we want is dinner. Where’s that rascally landlord?” He went to the door, but as he opened it he bethought himself of something, and looked back. “Burn it, if we do get rid of Vidal’s wench there’s still that silly chit Juliana. What’s to be done with her?”

Juliana said in a small, dignified voice: “I am here, Uncle Rupert.”

“Of course you’re there. I’ve eyes in my head, haven’t I?” said his lordship testily. “Though why you’re here the Lord only knows. Well, there’s naught for it: you’ll have to marry young Comyn here, unless Vidal will have you, which I don’t think he will. Lord, was there ever such a family?”

Mr. Comyn was regarding Juliana fixedly. She did not look at him, but blushed, and stammered: “I do not want to—to marry Mr. Comyn, and he does not want to marry m-me.”

“Now don’t start to make a lot more difficulties!” begged his lordship. “You can’t go chasing all over France with a man, and leaving silly letters for a born fool like Elisabeth, and stay single. Why, it’s unheard of!”

“I did not go with a—a man!” said Juliana, blushing more deeply still. “I went with my cousin.”

“I know you did,” said Rupert frankly. “That’s what’s bothering me.”

The Duchess was pondering over her own worries, but this caught her attention, and she fired up. “It is perfectly respectable for Juliana to go with my son, Rupert!”

“It ain’t,” said Rupert. “She couldn’t have chosen a worse companion. Now don’t be in a heat, Léonie, for God’s sake! I don’t say the chit wasn’t as safe with Vidal as with that devilish dull brother of hers, but there ain’t a soul will believe that. No, we’ll have to set it about that she went off with Comyn, and you can tell Fanny, for I’ll be damned if I do.”

Léonie glanced from her niece’s hot face to Mr. Comyn’s intent one, and drew her own conclusions. “Juliana shall not marry anyone at all if she doesn’t want to, and no one will make a scandal because I am here, and so it is quite convenable,” she said. “Go and order dinner, Rupert. Me, I must at once find Dominique before he does anything dreadful.”

She pushed his lordship, protesting, out of the room, and looked back to say with her roguish smile: “M. Comyn, I think it would be a very good thing if you gave this foolish Juliana a big shake, and then perhaps she will not be foolish any more. Au revoir, mes enfants.” She whisked herself out of the room, but before she had time to shut the door she heard Mr. Comyn say in a low voice: “Miss Marling—Juliana—I implore you, listen to me!”

Léonie took Rupert’s arm confidingly. “That goes very well, I think. We are doing a great deal, you and I, n’est-ce pas?” She gave a gurgle of laughter. “We have made Juliana a mésalliance, which will enrage poor Fanny, and perhaps Monseigneur too, and now perhaps we shall keep Dominique away from that girl, and that will please Monseigneur, and he will forgive us. Let us find Dominique.”

Lord Rupert professed himself to be utterly without desire to find his nephew, and went off to the kitchens to order and inspect his dinner. Léonie heard her son’s voice raised in the courtyard at the back of the house, and looked through a window to see him giving instructions to his groom. She promptly hurried out to him, and demanded to know what he was doing.

He looked at her with a trace of impatience in his face. He was rather pale, she thought, and there was a frown in his eyes. “Madame, Mary has run from me to hide herself in France with naught but an odd guinea or two in her pocket. I must find her. It touches my honour, not my heart alone.”

“Do you know where she has gone?” Léonie asked. “I

do not want any girl to be ruined by you, but—” She stopped, and sighed.

“I don’t know. She was not seen to leave the inn, unless by one of the abigails, who, curse the wench, is gone off to visit her mother. She can’t be far.”

“It seems to me,” Léonie said slowly, “that this Mary Challoner does not at all wish to marry you, mon enfant. What I do not know is why she does not wish it. If it is because she loves you, then I understand very well, and I am infinitely sorry for her, and I think I will help you—unless I do not like her. But perhaps she does not love you, Dominique, which is not incomprehensible if you have been unkind. And if that is so, then I say you shall not marry her, but I will arrange something. You see?”

“Good God, madame, what arrangement is possible now? In the eyes of the world I’ve ruined her, though I swear to you I did not seduce her. What can I do but give her my name?”

“It is very difficult,” admitted the Duchess. “But you cannot force her to marry you, Dominique.”

“I can, and I will,” he replied grimly. “After—it shall be as she wishes. I am a fiend and a brute, no doubt, but not such a fiend that I would force more than my name on her, be sure.” His groom came out of the stables, leading a riding-horse. He caught his mother’s hands in a tight clasp. “Forgive me, maman!” he said. “I must marry her.”

Her fingers clung to his. “Oh, my dearest dear, you shall do anything you like, but when you have found her bring her to me, and I will arrange it, and then perhaps Monseigneur will not be so very angry with you.”

He hesitated. “I’d do it, but I don’t desire his wrath should fall on you, maman.”

She smiled, and shook her head. “He will be angry with me a little, perhaps, but he will forgive me because he knows that I am not at all respectable, au coeur, and I cannot help doing outrageous things sometimes.”

“I wish you had not come,” he said. He released her hands, and turned away from her to order the groom to lead his horse round to the front of the inn. He glanced back at Léonie to say briefly: “I must get my riding-whip,” and disappeared into the house.

She followed him down the passage to the private parlour. He went in quickly—too quickly for Juliana and her Frederick, who were seated hand in hand on the settle by the fire.

The Marquis cast them a cursory glance, and picked up his whip and greatcoat. Juliana said radiantly: “It was all a mistake, Vidal! We do love each other, and we have been monstrous unhappy, both of us, but we shall never, never quarrel again.”

“You affect me deeply,” said Vidal. He nodded to Comyn, and there was a glint of humour in his eyes. “Do you expect me to felicitate you? My God, I had her on my hands for three days. I should beat her if I were you.”

He turned to go out again, but the way was blocked by his uncle, who came in with a dusty bottle in one hand, and a glass in the other.

“Is that you, Vidal?” he said jovially. “’Pon my soul, I’m devilish glad we came to this place, though I’ll admit I was against it. That fat rogue there has six dozen bottles of this in his cellar. I’ve bought the lot, and as good a port as ever I tasted, too. Here, wait till you roll this round your tongue, my boy.” He poured out a glass of the burgundy, and gave it to his nephew.

The Marquis tossed it off, and set down the glass. “Quite tolerable,” he said.

“God bless the boy, that’s no way to treat a wine like this!” said Rupert, shocked. “We’ll broach the port after dinner, and if you throw that down your throat as though it was nothing in particular, I’ll wash my hands of you, and so I warn you.”

“I’m not dining,” the Marquis replied. “Out of the way, Rupert, I’m in a hurry.”

“Not dining?” echoed his lordship. “But Vidal, there’s a capon and a trifle of veal, and as sweet game-pie in the oven as you could wish for.” His nephew put him firmly aside, and strode out, leaving him to shake his head in great disapproval. “Mad!” he said. “Stark staring crazy!”

“It is you who are mad,” said Léonie with conviction. “You have bought all those bottles of wine, which is a great madness, for how in the world can you take them to England? I will not sit in a chaise with six dozen bottles of burgundy. It is not at all comme il faut.”

“I can hire a coach for ’em, can’t I?” retorted Rupert. “Now don’t start arguing, Léonie: I’ve been dragged all over France on as silly an errand as ever I heard of, and never a word of complaint out of me. I’ll admit you were in the right about Dijon. If you hadn’t insisted on coming here I’d not have found this burgundy. And now I’ve found it, damme, I’m going to carry it back to London with me!”

“But Rupert, it is not so important—”

“It’s a deal more important than Vidal’s silly affairs,” said his lordship severely. “There’s some sense in coming to Dijon to pick up wine like this.”

Mr. Comyn, who had been gazing at him in wonderment, ventured to say: “Hire a coach to carry wine?”

“Why not?” said his lordship.

“But—” Mr. Comyn could not go on.

“Eh bien, if you hire a coach for it I do not mind at all,” Léonie said, satisfied. “It seems to me a very good notion.”

Mr. Comyn suddenly bowed his head in his hands and gave way to mirth.

Chapter XVIII

miss challoner had much time for reflection during the stage-coach’s slow progress to Pont-de-Moine, and not many miles had been covered when, her first impetuous impulse to fly having abated, she became extremely fearful of the consequences of her action. Her purse was now woefully slim, and she supposed that the cost of a night’s lodging would make an end of the few remaining coins lent her by Miss Marling.

She did not know what to do, a state of affairs repugnant to one of her orderly habit of mind. To be stranded in the middle of a strange country seemed to her the worst fate that could befall any young female, and no amount of sensible argument could convince her that it was no worse than to be stranded, penniless, in England.

She first bent her mind to the problem of reaching Paris, but after some consideration she decided that her determination to return there was without reason. Having no acquaintance in Paris, and no intention of claiming assistance from the English Embassy, there could be little point in striving to get to the capital. It might even be better for her to seek employment in some smaller town. She reflected that if my Lord Vidal still sought her he would suppose Paris to be her objective, in which case anywhere in the world would be preferable to her.

The Duchess of Avon’s words continued to ring in her ears. Well, the Duchess need not suppose that Miss Mary Challoner was going to thrust herself into the noble family of Alastair. She would rather die—no, that was absurd. She did not wish to die in the least. Lord, she was becoming like Juliana, and falling into a habit of foolish exaggeration! She gave herself an inward shake. Her situation, though disagreeable, was not desperate. Though it seemed unlikely that she could obtain genteel employment without proper credentials, there must be some work to be found, and to be sure she had no right to be over-nice after the adventures she had passed through. The realization of her sudden and undeserved loss of character provoked a dismal frame of mind which was hard to shake off. She began to consider the several occupations open to her, and by the time she had run through such depressing trades as milliner, seamstress, serving-maid, and washerwoman, she was feeling very doleful indeed. On the whole, the life of a serving-maid seemed to be the most agreeable of those debased professions. She thought that she would endeavour to find a suitable post, and as soon as she had saved enough money to pay for the journey she would go back to England, where more congenial employment might, with a little ingenuity, be found. Even if she had the means at her disposal she would not return to England yet, for no doubt the packet would be watched for some time to come, if not by the Marquis, certainly by her own family. Later, when all hue and cry had died down, and she was in a fair way to being forgotten, it would be safe to venture back, though never, she determined, to within reach of her own people.

Having made up her mind to become a serving-maid, she found herself without anything much to think of except the events of the past few days, and she was soon confronted by a fresh alarm: that the Marquis, upon discovering her flight, would pursue her immediately. She at once perceived that to board the Paris stage had been an act of supreme folly, for my lord would naturally suppose her to be escaping to Paris, and would have not the slightest difficulty in catching up with the slow-moving coach. At the same time, no one had actually seen her set forth, although one abigail must have a very good notion whither she had gone. It was possible that his lordship might first scour Dijon and the surrounding countryside, which would give her time to hide herself. There was also the Duchess to be reckoned with, and Miss Challoner, during the days of her journey in his lordship’s company, had been led to believe that her wishes were very nearly paramount with him. From what she had said upon seeing him, it seemed certain that she would exert all her influence to induce him to abandon his unfortunate liaison. There was the tall man, too, who, Miss Challoner guessed, was probably his lordship’s uncle. Between them they should be able to hold the Marquis in check.

Her hand crept up surreptitiously under her cloak to feel the wound on her shoulder. The Marquis’s fine handkerchief was still knotted round it. She thought she would keep that handkerchief always, in memory of one brief moment when she had been sure that he loved her.

Tears stung her eyelids; she forced them back, casting a timid look round the coach to see whether anyone was looking at her. The stout woman was asleep, with her jaw sagging; two farmers were earnestly conversing opposite to her, and judging from his stentorous breathing she thought the man on her left was also asleep.

Well, that one moment’s conviction would comfort her in the lonely future. He had called her—but, after all, it was dangerous to recall his words, or the look on his face, or the gentle note in his voice.

She had thought—it seemed a long time ago now—that if only he had loved her she could marry him, but she had not considered then what it would mean to him to marry one so far beneath him. Perhaps his father would cast him off; it might even be in his power to disinherit him, and from all she had heard of his grace he was quite capable of doing that. She did not think that his love would survive exclusion from his own order, nor could she for an instant contemplate dragging him down to the society of lesser men. She thought, a little sadly, that she had seen too clearly how a man could sink to be able to cheat herself into supposing that the Marquis would maintain his position. Her own father had been disowned by his father, and he had ceased to associate with his old friends, because he had been looked at askance, as one who had committed the unforgivable sin. If the Duke of Avon had it in his power to disinherit his son, the Marquis would soon find himself condemned to the society of Miss Challoner, and Uncle Henry Simpkins, and their like. The very notion was so incredible that had her heart been less heavy she would have smiled at it.

It had grown dark inside the coach, and very chilly. Miss Challoner drew her cloak more tightly round her, and tried to ease her cramped limbs. It did not seem as though they would ever arrive at Pont-de-Moine. At every halt, of which there were many, she waited hopefully to be set down, but though one of the farmers had alighted, and two other persons entered the coach, no summons had yet come for her. She had no means of ascertaining the tune, but she felt sure she had been travelling for many hours, and had begun to wonder whether the guard had forgotten her, and long passed Pont-de-Moine, when the coach stopped again before a well-lighted inn, and the door was pulled open.

The guard announced Pont-de-Moine in a stentorian voice which woke the fat woman with a jerk. The child, drowsing in her arms, set up a whimper, and Miss Challoner descended thankfully on to the road.

The guard, who apparently took a friendly interest in her, jerked his thumb towards the open door of the inn, and said that she had best bespeak a bed for the night there. She looked at the inn doubtfully, fearing from its well-kept appearance that it might be beyond her means to stay there, and inquired whether there was not some smaller hostelry to which she could repair.

The guard scratched his chin, and ran his eyes over her thoughtfully. “Not for you, there is not,” he said bluntly. “There’s only a tavern, at the end of the village, but it’s not fit for a decent woman to enter.”

Miss Challoner thanked him, and rather recklessly pressed a silver coin into his hand, thereby depleting her slender hoard still further.

She watched the guard climb on to the box again, and feeling somewhat as though she had lost her only friend in all France, she turned, and walked resolutely into the inn.

She found herself in a small well-hall, with the stairs running up to a couple of galleries on the first and second storeys. The place was lit by swinging lamps, and had several doors leading out of it, on one side. On the other an archway afforded a glimpse of a comfortable coffee-room.

Out of this apartment the landlord came bustling, a lean man with a sharp face, and a habit of sniffing. He came bowing, and rubbing his dry hands together, but when he saw that his visitor was quite unattended, his manner changed, and he asked her in a curt way what she wanted.

She was unaccustomed to meet with incivility, and instinctively she stiffened. She replied in her quiet, well-bred voice, that she had alighted from the stage, and required a bed-chamber.

Like the guard, the landlord eyed her up and down, but in his glance was no friendliness, but a distinct look of contempt. Solitary females travelling by stage were not wont to put up at his inn, which was a house catering for the nobility and gentry. He asked warily whether her abigail was outside, with her baggage, and perceived at once, from her sudden flush and downcast eyes, that she had no abigail, and probably no baggage either.

Until this humiliating moment Miss Challoner had not considered her extremely barren state. She knew quite well in what a light she must appear, and it took all her resolution not to turn and run ignominiously away.

Her fingers clasped her reticule tightly. She lifted her head, and said calmly: “There has been an accident, and my baggage is unhappily left behind me at Dijon. I expect it to-morrow. Meanwhile I require a bed-chamber, and some supper. A bowl of broth in my room will suffice.”

It was quite evident that the landlord did not place any belief in the existence of Miss Challoner’s baggage. “You have come to the wrong inn,” he said. “There is a place down the street for the likes of you.”

He encountered a look from Miss Challoner’s fine grey eyes that made him suddenly nervous lest her story might after all be true. But at this moment he was reinforced by the arrival of his wife, a dame as stout as he was lean, who demanded to know what the young person wanted.

He repeated Miss Challoner’s story to her. The dame set her arms akimbo, and gave vent to a short bark of laughter. “A very likely tale,” she said. “You’d best be off to the Chat Griz, my girl. The Rayon d’Or does not honour persons of your quality. Baggage in Dijon indeed!”

It did not seem as though an appeal to this scornful lady would be of avail. Miss Challoner said steadily: “I find you impertinent, my good woman. I am English, travelling to rejoin my friends in the neighbourhood, and although I am aware that the loss of my baggage must appear strange to you—”

“Vastly strange, mademoiselle, I assure you. The English are all mad, sans doute, but we have had many of them at the Rayon d’Or, and they are not so mad that they permit their ladies to journey alone on the diligence. Come, now, be off with you! There is no lodging for you here, I can tell you. Such a tale! If you are English, you will be some serving-maid, very likely dismissed for some fault. The Chat Griz will give you a bed.”

“The guard on the stage warned me what kind of a hostelry that is,” replied Miss Challoner. “If you doubt my story, let me tell you that my name is Challoner, and I have sufficient money at my disposal to pay for your bed-chamber.”

“Take your money elsewhere!” said the woman brusquely. “A nice thing it would be if we were to house young persons of your kind! Don’t stand there staring down your nose at me, my girl! Be off at once!”

A soft voice spoke from the stairway. “One moment, my good creature,” it said.

Miss Challoner looked up quickly. Down the stairs, very leisurely, was coming a tall gentleman dressed in a rich suit of black cloth with much silver lacing. He wore a powdered wig, and a patch at the corner of his rather thin mouth, and there was the hint of a diamond in the lace at his throat. He carried a long ebony cane in one hand, and a great square emerald glinted on one of his fingers. As he descended into the full light of the lamps Miss Challoner saw that he was old, although his eyes, directly surveying her from under their heavy lids, were remarkably keen. They were of a hard grey, and held a cynical gleam.

That he was a personage of considerable importance she at once guessed, for not only was the landlord bowing till his nose almost touched his knee, but the gentleman had in every languid movement the air of one born to command. He reached the foot of the stairs, and came slowly towards the group by the door. He did not seem to be aware of the landlord’s existence; he was looking at Miss Challoner, and it was to her and in English that he addressed himself. “You appear to be in some difficulty, madam. Pray let me know how I can serve you.”

She curtsied with pretty dignity. “Thank you, sir. All I require is a lodging for the night, but I believe I must not trouble you.”

“It does not seem to be an out-of-the-way demand,” said the gentleman, raising his brows. “You will no doubt inform me where the hitch lies.”

His air of calm authority brought a smile quivering to Miss Challoner’s lips. “I repeat, sir, you are very kind, but I beg you will not concern yourself with my stupid affairs.”

His cold glance rested oa her with a kind of bored indifference that she found disconcerting, and oddly familiar. “My good child,” he said, with a touch of disdain in his voice, “your scruples, though most affecting, are quite needless. I imagine I might well be your grandfather.”

She coloured a little, and replied, with a frank look: “I beg your pardon, sir. Indeed, my scruples are only lest I should be thought to importune a stranger.”

“You edify me extremely,” he said. “Will you now have the goodness to inform me why this woman finds herself unable to supply you with a bed-chamber?”

“I can scarcely blame her, sir,” said Miss Challoner honestly. “I have no maid, and no baggage, and I arrived by the stage coach. My situation is excessively awkward, and I was very foolish not to have realized sooner what an odd appearance I must present.”

“The loss of your baggage is, I fear, beyond my power to remedy, but a bed-chamber I can procure for you at once.”

“I should be very grateful to you, sir, if you would.”

The Englishman turned to the landlord, who was humbly awaiting his pleasure. “Your stupidity, my good Boisson, is lamentable,” he remarked. “You will escort this lady to a suitable chamber.”

“Yes, monseigneur, yes indeed. It shall be as monseigneur wishes. But—”

“I do not think,” said the Englishman sweetly, “that I evinced any desire to converse with you.”

“No, monseigneur,” said the landlord. “If—if mademoiselle would follow my wife upstairs? The large front room, Celestine!”

Madame said resentfully: “What, the large room?”

The landlord gave her a push towards the stairs. “Certainly the large one. Go quickly!”

The Englishman turned to Miss Challoner. “You bespoke supper, I believe. I shall be honoured by your presence at my own table. Boisson will show you the way to my private salle.”

Miss Challoner hesitated. “A bowl of soup in my chamber, sir—”

“You will find it more entertaining to sup with me,” he said. “Let me allay your qualms by informing you that I have the pleasure of your grandfather’s acquaintance.”

Miss Challoner grew rather pale. “My grandfather?” she said quickly.

“Certainly. You said, I think, that your name is Challoner. I have known Sir Giles any time these forty years. Permit me to tell you that you have a great look of him.”

In face of this piece of information Miss Challoner abandoned her first impulse to disclaim all relationship with Sir Giles. She stood feeling remarkably foolish, and looking rather worried.

The gentleman smiled faintly. “Very wise,” he commented, with uncanny perspicacity. “I should never believe that you were not his granddaughter. May I suggest that you follow this worthy female upstairs? You will join me at your convenience.”

Miss Challoner had to laugh. “Very well, sir,” she said, and curtsied, and went off in the wake of the landlady.

She was allotted what she guessed to be one of the best chambers, and a serving-maid brought her water in a brass can. She emptied her reticule on to the dressing-table, and somewhat ruefully inspected the collection thus displayed. Luckily she had slipped a clean tucker into it, and when carefully arranged round her shoulders this concealed the tear in her gown. She combed out her hair, and dressed it again, washed her face and hands, and went downstairs to the hall.

The presence of a countryman had been providential, but that he should be acquainted with her grandfather, and knew her identity, was a calamity. Miss Challoner had no idea what she was going to say to him, but some explanation was clearly called for.

The landlord was awaiting her at the foot of the staircase, and he met her with a respect as marked as his late contempt. He led the way to one of the doors leading from the hall, and ushered her into a large parlour.

Covers were laid on the table in the centre of the room, and the apartment was lit by clusters of wax candles in solid chandeliers. Miss Challoner’s new friend was standing by the fireplace. He came forward to meet her, and taking her hand at once remarked on its coldness. She confessed that she was still feeling chilly, and told him that the stage had been full of draughts. She went to the fire, and spread out her hands to the blaze. “I find this very welcome, sir,” she said, smiling up at him. “You are indeed kind to invite me to sup with you.”

He surveyed her somewhat enigmatically. “You shall let me know later how I may serve you further,” he said. “Will you not be seated?”

She walked to the table, and sat down at his right hand. A liveried servant came in noiselessly, and set soup before them. He would have stayed behind his master’s chair, but a slight sign dismissed him.

Miss Challoner drank her soup, realizing suddenly that it was many hours since she had partaken of food. She was relieved to find that her host did not seem to require an immediate explanation of her peculiar circumstances, but talked gently instead on a number of impersonal subjects. He had a caustic way with him, which Miss Challoner found entertaining. There was often a twinkle in her eye, and since her knowledge was sufficiently wide (for, unlike her friend Juliana, she had not wasted her time at school), she was able not only to listen, but to contribute her own share to the conversation. By the time the sweetmeats were set on the table she and her host were getting on famously, and she had quite lost any shyness that she might at first have felt. He encouraged her to talk, sitting back in his chair, sipping his wine, and watching her. To begin with, she had found his scrutiny a little trying, for his face told her nothing of what he might be thinking, but she was not the woman to be easily unnerved, and she looked back at him, whenever occasion demanded, with her usual friendly calm.

She could not be rid of the conviction that she had met him before, and the effort to remember where brought a crease between her brows. Observing it, her host said: “Something troubles you, Miss Challoner?”

She smiled. “No, sir, hardly that. Perhaps it is ridiculous of me to suppose it, but I have an odd feeling that I have met you before. I have not?”

He set his glass down, and stretched out his hand for the decanter. “No, Miss Challoner, you have not.”

She was tempted to ask his name, but since he was so very much older than herself she did not care to appear in the least familiar. If he wished her to know it no doubt he would tell her.

She laid down her napkin, and rose. “I have been talking a great deal, I fear,” she said. “May I thank you, sir, for a pleasant evening, and for your exceeding kindness, and so bid you good-night?”

“Don’t go,” he said. “Your reputation is quite safe, and the night is still young. Without wishing to seem idly curious, I should like to hear why you are journeying unprotected, through France. Do you think I am entitled to an explanation?”

She remained standing beside her chair. “Yes, sir, I do think it,” she answered quietly. “For my situation must seem indeed strange. But unhappily I am not able to give you the true explanation, and since I do not wish to repay your kindness with lies it is better that I should offer none. May I wish you good-night, sir?”

“Not yet,” he said. “Sit down, my child.”

She looked at him for a moment, and after some slight hesitation, obeyed, lightly clasping her hands in the lap of her grey gown.

The stranger regarded her over the brim of his wineglass. “May I ask why you find yourself unable to proffer the true explanation?”

She seemed to ponder her reply for a while. “There are several reasons, sir. The truth is so very nearly as strange as Mr. Walpole’s famous romance that perhaps I fear to be disbelieved.”

He tilted his glass, observing the reflection of the candlelight in the deep red wine. “But did you not say, Miss Challoner, that you would not lie to me?” he inquired softly.

Her eyes narrowed. “You are very acute, sir.”

“I have that reputation,” he agreed.

His words touched a chord of memory in her brain, but she was unable to catch the fleeting remembrance. She said: “You are quite right, sir: that is not my reason. The truth is there is someone else involved in my story.”

“I had supposed that there might be,” he replied. “Am I to understand that your lips are sealed out of consideration for this other person?”

“Not entirely, sir, but in part, yes.”

“Your sentiments are most elevating, Miss Challoner. But this punctiliousness is quite needless, believe me. Lord Vidal’s exploits have never been attended by any secrecy.”

She jumped, and her eyes flew to his face in a look of startled interrogation. He smiled. “I had the felicity of meeting your esteemed grandparent at Newmarket not many days since,” he said. “Upon hearing that I was bound for France he requested me to inquire for you on my way through Paris.”

“He knew?” she said blankly.

“Without doubt he knew.”

She covered her face with her hands. “My mother must have told him,” she said almost inaudibly. “It is worse, then, than I thought.”

He put his wineglass down, and pushed his chair a little way back from the table. “I beg you will not distress yourself, Miss Challoner. The role of confidant is certainly new to me, but I trust I know the rules.”

She got up and went over to the fire, trying to collect her thoughts, and to compose her natural agitation. The gentleman at the table took snuff, and waited for her to return. She did so in a minute or two, with a certain brisk determination that characterized her. She was rather pale, but completely mistress of herself. “If you know that I—left England with Lord Vidal, sir, I am more than ever grateful for your hospitality to-night, and an explanation is beyond doubt due to you,” she said. “I do not know how much you have learned of me, but since no one in England knows the whole truth, I fear you may have been quite misinformed on several points.”

“It is more than likely,” agreed her host. “May I suggest that you tell me the whole story? I have every intention of helping you out of your somewhat difficult situation, but I desire to know exactly why you left England with Lord Vidal, and why I find you to-day, apparently alone and friendless.”

She leaned towards him, her face eager. “Will you help me, sir? Will you help me to obtain a post as governess in some French family, so that I need not go back to England, but can maintain myself abroad?”

“Is that what you want?” he inquired incredulously.

“Yes, sir, indeed it is.”

“Dear me!” he remarked. “You seem to be a female of great resource. Pray begin your story.”

“In doing so, sir, I am forced to betray the—folly—of my sister. I dare say I need not ask you to—to forget that part of the tale.”

“My memory is most adaptable, Miss Challoner.”

“Thank you, sir. You must know then that I have a sister who is very young, foolish as girls are sometimes, and very, very lovely. Her path was crossed, not so long ago, by the Marquis of Vidal.”

“Naturally,” murmured her host. “Naturally, sir?”

“Oh, I think so,” he said, with a faintly satirical smile. “If she is—very, very lovely—I feel sure that the Marquis of Vidal would cross her path. But continue, I beg of you!” She inclined her head. “Very well, sir. This part of the story is very hard to tell, for I do not wish to give you to understand that the Marquis—forced his attentions upon an unwilling female. My sister encouraged him, and led him to suppose that she was—that she—”

“I comprehend perfectly, Miss Challoner.” She threw him a grateful look. “Yes, sir. Well, the end of it was that the Marquis induced my sister to consent to fly with him. I discovered their assignation, which was for eleven o’clock one evening. I should explain that the billet his lordship sent my sister, appointing the hour, fell into my hands, and not hers. There were reasons, sir, into which I shall not drag you, which prevented me from informing my mother of this dreadful elopement. I need not tell you, sir, that his lordship did not contemplate marriage. It seemed to me that I must contrive not only to stop the actual flight, but to put an end to an affair that would only mean Sophia’s ruin. When I look back I marvel at my own simplicity. I conceived the notion of taking Sophia’s place in the coach, and when he discovered the imposture it was my intention to make him believe that Sophia and I had planned it between us, for a jest. I thought that nothing would more surely disgust him.” She paused, and added drily: “I was quite right.”

The gentleman twisted the emerald ring on his finger. “Do I understand that you carried out this remarkable plan?” he inquired.

“Oh, yes, sir. But it went sadly awry.”

“That was to have been expected,” he said gently. “I suppose so,” she sighed. “It was a silly plan. Lord Vidal did not discover the cheat until next morning, when we reached Newhaven. To find myself by the sea was a shock to me. I had not guessed that his lordship intended to leave England. I entered the inn on the quay in his company, and in the private room he had engaged I discovered myself to him.” She stopped.

“I can well imagine that Lord Vidal’s emotions baffle description,” said the gentleman.

She was looking straight in front of her. She nodded, and said slowly: “In what followed, sir, I do not wish to lay any blame on Lord Vidal. I played my part too well, not dreaming of the revenge he would take. I must have appeared to him—I did appear to him—a vulgar, loose female.” She turned her head towards him. “Are you acquainted with Lord Vidal, sir?”

“I am, Miss Challoner.”

“Then you will know, sir, that his lordship’s temper is extremely fiery and uncontrolled. I had provoked it, and it—it was disastrous. Lord Vidal forced me to go on board his yacht, and carried me to Dieppe.”

The gentleman felt for his quizzing-glass, and raised it. Through it he surveyed Miss Challoner. “May I ask what were his lordship’s tactics?” he inquired. “I feel an almost overwhelming interest in the methods of daylight abduction employed by the modern youth.”

“Well, it was not very romantic,” confessed Miss Challoner. “He threatened to pour the contents of his flask down my throat, thereby rendering me too drunk to resist.” She saw a frown in his eyes, and said: “I fear I shock you, sir, but remember that his lordship was enraged.”

“I am not shocked, Miss Challoner, but I infinitely deplore such a lack of finesse. Did his lordship carry out this ingenious plan?”

“No, for I submitted. To be made drunk seemed to me a horrid fate. I said I would go with him. It was very early, and there was no one on the quay, so that I could not call for help, even had I dared. And since his lordship threatened to strangle me if I made the least outcry, I am sure I should not have dared. I went on board the yacht, and as our passage was rough, I was most vilely unwell.”

A smile flickered across her hearer’s countenance. “My sympathies are with Lord Vidal. He no doubt found you most disconcerting.”

She gave a little laugh. “I think you don’t know him very well, sir, for it is one of the nice things about him that he was not disconcerted, but on the contrary, extremely prompt in dealing with the situation.”

He was looking at her rather curiously. “I thought that I knew him very well indeed,” he said. “Apparently I was wrong. Pray continue: you begin to interest me vastly.”

“He has a dreadful reputation,” she said earnestly, “but he is not wicked at heart. He is nothing but a wild, passionate, spoiled boy.”

“I am all admiration for your shrewdness, Miss Challoner,” said the gentleman politely.

“It is true, sir,” she insisted, suspecting him of irony. “When I was sick on that yacht—”

He raised one thin hand. “I accept your reading of his lordship’s true nature, Miss Challoner. Spare me a recital of your sufferings at sea, I beg of you.”

She smiled. “They were excessively painful, sir, I assure you. But we arrived at length at Dieppe, where his lordship had planned to spend the night. We dined. His lordship had, I think, been drinking aboard the yacht. He was in an ugly mood, and I was compelled, in the end, to protect my virtue in a somewhat drastic manner.”

The gentleman opened his snuff-box, and took a pinch delicately. “If you succeeded in protecting your virtue, my dear Miss Challoner, I can readily believe—knowing his lordship—that your methods must have been exceedingly drastic. You perceive me positively agog with curiosity.”

“I shot him,” she said bluntly.

The hand that was raising the pinch of snuff to one nostril was checked for a brief moment. “Accept my compliments,” said the gentleman calmly, and inhaled the snuff.

“It was not a very bad wound,” she told him. “But it sobered him, you see.”

“I imagine that it might do so,” he conceded.

“Yes, sir. He began to realize that I was not—not vulgarly coy, but in deadly earnest.”

“Did he indeed? A gentleman of intuition, I perceive.”

Miss Challoner said with dignity: “You laugh, sir, but it was not very amusing at the time.”

The gentleman bowed. “I beg your pardon,” he said solemnly. “What happened next?”

“His lordship insisted that I should tell him all that I have told you. When he had heard me out he said that there was. only one thing to be done. I must marry him at once.”

The keen eyes lifted from the contemplation of the enamelled snuff-box, and were suddenly intent. “We have reached the point where you interest me extraordinarily,” said that smooth voice. “Proceed, Miss Challoner.”

She looked down at her clasped hands. “I could not consent to so wild a scheme, sir, of course. I was forced to decline his lordship’s offer.”

“I do not think I am a fool,” said the gentleman pensively. “But although I can sympathize with your reluctance to marry so dissolute a gentleman as Lord Vidal, your predicament was such that I do not immediately perceive what forced you to decline.”

“The knowledge, sir, that Lord Vidal did not care for me,” answered Miss Challoner in a low voice. “The knowledge also that in marrying me he would be making a—a deplorable mésalliance. I do not desire to discuss that, if you please. I requested his lordship—since I could hardly return to England—to escort me to Paris, where I hoped to find some genteel employment, such as I described to you.”

The quizzing-glass was raised again. “You appear to have confronted your somewhat unnerving situation with remarkable equanimity, Miss Challoner.”

She shrugged. “What else could I do, sir? Vapours would not have helped me. Besides, I had his lordship sick on my hands with some slight inflammation of the wound I had given him, and as he was bent on doing a number of imprudent things I had too much to do in preventing him to think very much of my own troubles.”

“From my brief acquaintance with you, Miss Challoner, I feel moderately convinced that you did prevent Lord Vidal’s imprudence.”

“Oh yes,” she answered. “He is quite easy to manage, if—if one only knows the way.”

The quizzing-glass fell. “His lordship’s parents should be anxious to meet you,” said the gentleman.

Her smile was twisted. “I am afraid not, sir. I do not know whether you are acquainted with his grace of Avon?”

“Intimately,” he said, with the ghost of a laugh.

“Oh, then—” She broke off. “In short, sir, I refused Lord Vidal’s offer, and we—”

“But were you not about to make some observation concerning his grace of Avon?” he interposed urbanely.

“I was, sir, but if you are intimate with him I will refrain.”

“Pray do not. In what monstrous light has this gentleman appeared to you?”

“I have never set eyes on him, sir. I only judge him by what I have heard, and by things that Lord Vidal has from time to time let fall. I suppose him to be a man of few morals and no heart. He seems to me a sinister person, and is, I believe, quite unscrupulous in attaining his ends.”

The gentleman appeared to be amused. “I am far from contradicting you, Miss Challoner, but may I inquire whether you culled this masterly description from Lord Vidal’s lips?”

“If you mean, did Lord Vidal tell me so, no, sir, he did not. Lord Vidal is, I think, attached to his grace. I go by common report, a little, and by the very lively fear of her uncle evinced by my friend Miss Marling, His lordship merely gave me to understand that his father was uncannily omniscient, and had a habit of succeeding in all his objects.”

“I am relieved to hear that Lord Vidal has so much respect for his grace,” remarked the gentleman.

“Are you, sir? Well, having formed this opinion, I could not but feel that so far from desiring to meet me, his grace would very likely disinherit Lord Vidal if his lordship married me.”

“You draw an amiable portrait, Miss Challoner, but I can assure you that whatever his grace’s feelings might be he would never follow so distressingly crude a course.”

“Would he not, sir? I did not know, but I am very sure he would not countenance his son’s marriage to a nobody. To continue: Lord Vidal, discovering that I was once at school with his cousin, Miss Marling, brought me to Paris, and consigned me to her care until such time as he could find an English divine to marry me. Miss Marling was secretly betrothed to a certain Mr. Comyn, but their betrothal was broken off—irrevocably, as I thought—and Mr. Comyn, being a gentleman of great chivalry, offered his hand to me, to enable me to escape from Lord Vidal. Though I blush to confess it, sir, such was my desperate need, that I consented to elope with Mr. Comyn to Dijon where Lord Vidal had found an English divine. Unfortunately, Mr. Comyn thought it incumbent on him to leave a note for his lordship, apprising him of our intention to wed. The result was, sir, that Lord Vidal, accompanied by Miss Marling, overtook us at Dijon before the knot was tied. There was a painful scene. Mr. Comyn, desiring to protect me from his lordship’s—coercion—announced that we were man and wife. Lord Vidal, with the object of making me a widow, tried to choke the life out of Mr. Comyn. In which I think he would probably have succeeded,” she added, “had there not been a jug of water at hand. I threw it over them both, and my lord let Mr. Comyn go.”

“A jug of water!” he repeated. His shoulders shook slightly. “But continue, Miss Challoner!”

“After that,” she said matter-of-factly, “they fought with their swords.”

“How very enlivening! Where did they fight with—er—their swords?”

“In the private parlour. Juliana had hysterics.”

“It is quite unnecessary to tell me that,” he assured her. “What I should like to know is what was done with Mr. Comyn’s body?”

“He wasn’t killed, sir. No one was hurt at all.”

“You amaze me,” said the gentleman.

“Mr. Comyn would have been killed,” Miss Challoner admitted, “but I stopped it. I thought it was time.”

The gentleman surveyed her with distinct admiration, not untouched by amusement. “Of course I should have known that you stopped it,” he said. “What means did you employ this time?”

“Rather rough-and-ready ones, sir. I tried to catch the blades in a coat.”

“I am disappointed,” he said. “I had imagined a far neater scheme. Were you hurt?”

“A little, sir. His lordship’s sword scratched me, no more. That ended the duel. Mr. Comyn said that he must tell Lord Vidal the truth about us, and feeling myself somewhat shaken, I retired to my chamber.” She paused, and drew a long breath. “Before I had reached the stairway, his lordship’s mother arrived, accompanied, I think, by Lord Rupert Alastair. They did not see me, but I—I heard her grace—say to Lord Vidal—that he must not marry me, and I—I got into the diligence for Paris, which was at the door, and—and came here. That is all my story, sir.”

A silence fell. Conscious of her host’s scrutiny, Miss Challoner averted her face. After a moment she said: “Having heard me, sir, do you still feel inclined to assist me out of my difficulty?”

“I am doubly anxious to assist you, Miss Challoner. But since you have been so frank, I must request you to be yet franker. Am I right in assuming that you love Lord Vidal?”

“Too well to marry him, sir,” said Miss Challoner in a subdued voice.

“May I aesk why ‘too well’?”

She raised her head. “How could I, sir, knowing that his parents would do anything in their power to prevent such a marriage? How could I let him stoop to my level? I am not of his world, though Sir Giles Challoner is my grandfather. Please do not let us speak any more of this! My mind is made up; my one dread now is that his lordship may pursue me to this place.”

“I can safely promise you, my dear, that whUe you remain under my protection you are in no danger from Lord Vidal.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the sound of voices outside came to Miss Challoner’s ears. She grew very white, and half rose from her chair. “Sir, he has come!” she said, trying to be calm.

“So I apprehend,” he said imperturbably.

Miss Challoner cast a frightened look round. “You promised I should be safe, sir. Will you bide me somewhere? We must be quick!”

“I still promise that you shall be safe,” he replied. “But I shall certainly not hide you. Let me recommend you to be seated once more ... Come in!”

One of the inn servants came in looking rather scared, and firmly shut the door. “Milor’, there is a gentleman outside demands to see the English lady. I told him she was supping with an English milor’, and he spoke through his teeth, thus: ‘I will see this English milor’,’ he said. Milor’, he has the look of one about to do a murder. Shall I summon milor’s own servants?”

“Certainly not,” said milor’. “Admit this gentleman.”

Miss Challoner put out her hand impulsively. “Sir, I beg you will not! If my lord is in one of his rages I cannot answer for what he may do. I have a great alarm lest your years should not protect you from his violence. Is there no way I can escape from this room unseen?”

“Miss Challoner, I must once more request you to be seated,” said milor’, bored. “Lord Vidal will lay violent hands on neither of us.” He looked across at the serving-man. “I do not in the least understand why you are standing there goggling at me,” he said. “Admit his lordship.”

The servant withdrew; Miss Challoner, standing still beside her chair, looked down rather helplessly at her host. She wondered what would happen when my lord came in. A clock had chimed midnight somewhere in the distance not long since; it was a very odd hour at which to be found supping with a strange gentleman, however venerable he might be, and she feared that the Marquis’s jealous temper might flare up with disastrous results. There seemed to be no hope of making her host understand that the Marquis in a black rage was scarcely responsible for his actions. The gentleman was maddeningly imperturbable: he was even smiling a little.

She heard a quick step in the hall; Vidal’s voice said sharply: “Stable my horse, one of you. Where is this Englishman?’

Miss Challoner laid her hand on the back of her chair, and grasped it as though for support. The servant said: “I will announce m’sieur.”

He was cut short. “I’ll announce myself,” said his lordship savagely.

A moment later the door was flung open, and the Marquis strode in, his fingers hard clenched on his riding-whip. He cast one swift smouldering glance across the room, and stopped dead, a look of thunderstruck amazement on his face. “Sir!” he gasped.

The gentleman at the head of the table looked him over from his head to his heels. “You may come in, Vidal,” he said suavely.

The Marquis stayed where he was, one hand still on the doorknob. “You here!” he stammered. “I thought ...”

“Your reflections are quite without interest, Vidal. No doubt you will shut that door in your own good time.”

To Miss Challoner’s utter astonishment the Marquis shut it at once, and said stiffly: “Your pardon, sir.” He tugged at his cravat. “Had I known that you were here—”

“Had you known that I was here,” said the elder man in a voice that froze Miss Challoner to the marrow, “you would possibly have made your entrance in a more seemly fashion. You will permit me to tell you that I find your manners execrable.”

The Marquis flushed, and set his teeth. An incredible and dreadful premonition seized Miss Challoner. She looked from the Marquis to her host, and her hand went instinctively to her cheek. “Oh, good God!” she said, aghast. “Are you—can you be—?” She could get no further.

The look of amusement crept back into the gentleman’s eyes. “As usual, you are quite right, Miss Challoner. I am that unscrupulous and sinister person so aptly described by you a while back.”

Miss Challoner’s tongue seemed to tie itself into knots. “I can’t—I would not—there is nothing I can say, sir, except that I ask your pardon.”

“There is not the smallest need, Miss Challoner, I assure you. Your reading of my character was most masterly. The only thing I find hard to forgive is your conviction that you had met me before. I don’t pretend to be flattered by the likeness you evidently perceived.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the Marquis politely.

Miss Challoner walked away to the fireplace. “I am ashamed,” she said. Real perturbation sounded in her voice. “I had no business to say what I did. I see now that I was quite at fault. For the rest—had I known who you were I would never have told you all that I did.”

“That would have been a pity,” said his grace. “I found your story extremely illuminating.”

She made a hopeless little gesture. “Please permit me to retire, sir.”

“You are no doubt fatigued after the many discomforts you have suffered to-day,” agreed his grace, “but I apprehend that my son—whose apologies I beg to offer—is come here expressly to see you. I really think that you would be well advised to listen to anything he may have to say.”

“I can’t!” she said, in a suffocated way. “Please let me go!”

The Marquis came quickly across the room to her side. He took her hands in his strong clasp, and said in a low voice: “You should not have fled from me. My God, do you hate me so much? Mary, listen to me! I’ll force nothing on you, but I beg of you, accept my name! There’s no other way I can right you in the eyes of the world. You must wed me! I swear to you on my honour I’ll not hurt you. I won’t come near you unless you bid me. Father, tell her she must marry me! Tell her how needful it is!”

His grace said placidly: “I find myself quite unable to tell Miss Challoner anything of the kind.”

“What, have you been one hour in her company and not seen how infinitely above me she is?” the Marquis cried hotly.

“By no means,” said the Duke. “If Miss Challoner feels herself able to become your wife I shall consider myself to be vastly in her debt, but out of justice to her I am bound to advise her to consider well before she throws herself away so lamentably.” He regarded Miss Challoner blandly. “My dear, are you sure you cannot do better for yourself than to marry Vidal?”

A laugh escaped the Marquis. He drew Miss Challoner closer. “Mary, look at me! Mary, little love!”

“I am of course loth to interrupt you, Vidal, but I desire to inform Miss Challoner that there is no reason why she should accept your hand unless she chooses.” The Duke rose, and came towards them. The Marquis let Miss Challoner go. “You appear to be a woman of so much sense,” said his grace, “that I find it hard to believe you can really desire to marry my son. I beg you will not allow the exigencies of your situation to weigh with you. If marriage with Vidal is distasteful to you I will arrange matters for you in some other way.”

Miss Challoner gazed down into the fire. “I cannot ... I—the Duchess—my sister—oh, I do not know what to say!”

“The Duchess need not trouble you,” said his grace. He walked to the door, and opened it. He glanced back, and said languidly: “By the way, Vidal’s morals are rather better than mine.” He went out, and the door closed softly behind him.

The Marquis and Miss Challoner were left confronting one another. She did not look at him, but she knew that his eyes never wavered from her face. He made no movement to recapture her hands; he said slowly: “Until you ran away with Comyn, I never knew how much I loved you, Mary. If you won’t marry me, I shall spend the rest of my life striving to win you. I’ll never rest till I’ve got you. Never, do you understand?”

A smile trembled on her lips. “And if I do marry you, my lord? You’ll let me go my own road? You’ll not come near me unless I wish it? You’ll not fly into rages with me, nor tyrannize over me?”

“I swear it,” he said.

She came to him, her eyes full of tender laughter. “Oh, my love, I know you better than you know yourself!” she said huskily. “At the first hint of opposition, you’ll coerce me shamefully. Oh, Vidal! Vidal!”

He had caught her in his arms so fiercely that the breath was almost crushed out of her. His dark face swam before her eyes for an instant, then his mouth was locked to hers, in a kiss so hard that her lips felt bruised. She yielded, carried away half-swooning on the tide of his passion. But in a moment she struggled to get her hands free, and at once his hold on her slackened. She flung up her arms round his neck, and with a queer little sound between a sob and a laugh, buried her face in his coat.

Chapter XIX

miss challoner appeared at the breakfast hour next morning rather shy, her face delicately tinged with colour. She found both the Marquis and his father in the parlour, and an elderly dapper little Frenchman whom she discovered to be his grace’s valet.

The Marquis carried her hand to his lips, and held it there for a moment. His grace said in his bored voice: “I trust you slept well, child. Pray be seated. Gaston, you will take my chaise immediately to Dijon, where you will find her grace.”

“Bien, monseigneur.”

“You will bring her to this place. Also my Lord Rupert, Miss Marling, and Mr. Comyn. That is all, Gaston.”

There had been a day when Gaston would have been appalled by such an order, but twenty-five years in Avon’s service had left their mark.

“Bien, monseigneur,” he replied without the smallest sign of surprise and bowed himself out.

The Marquis said impetuously: “I’ll make that fellow Hammond marry us, Mary, at once.”

“Very well,” said Miss Challoner equably.

“You will be married,” said his grace, “in Paris, at the Embassy.”

“But, sir—”

“A little coffee, my lord?” said Miss Challoner.

“I never touch it. Sir—”

“If his grace wishes you to married at the Embassy, my lord, I won’t be married anywhere else,” stated Miss Challoner calmly.

The Marquis said: “You won’t, eh? Sir, it’s very well, but it will cause a deal of talk.”

“I rather think that it will,” agreed Avon. “I had no time on my way through Paris to arrange the details. But I have no doubt that my friend Sir Giles will have done so by this time.”

Miss Challoner regarded him in frank wonderment. “Is my grandfather in Paris then, sir?”

“Certainly,” said his grace. “I should tell you, my child, that officially you are in his company.”

“Am I, sir?” Miss Challoner blinked at him. “Then you did meet him at Newmarket?”

“Let us say, rather, that he came to find me at Newmarket,” he amended. “He is staying in an hotel which he has hired for some few weeks. You, my dear Mary, are at present keeping to your room, on account of some slight disorder of the system. The betrothal between yourself and my son is of long, though secret standing. Hitherto”—his grace touched his lips with his napkin, and laid it down. “Hitherto, both Sir Giles and myself have refused our consent to your marriage.”

“Have you?” said Mary, quite fascinated.

“Obviously. But Vidal’s banishment to France so attacked your sensibilities, my dear child, that you seemed to be in danger of going into a decline. This induced Sir Giles and myself to relent.”

“Oh, no!” begged Miss Challoner. “Not a decline, sir! I am not such a poor creature!”

“I am desolated to be obliged to contradict you, Mary, but you were certainly on the brink of a decline,” said Avon firmly.

Miss Challoner sighed. “Well, if you insist, sir ... What next?”

“Next,” said Avon, “the Duchess and myself came to Paris to grace the ceremony with our presence. We have not yet arrived, but we shall do so in a day or two. I imagine we are somewhere in the neighbourhood of Calais at the moment. When we do arrive we shall hold a rout-party in your honour. You will be formally presented to society as my son’s future wife. Which reminds me, that I cannot sufficiently praise your admirable discretion in refusing to go about when you sojourned with my cousin Elisabeth.”

Miss Challoner felt herself bound to say: “There is one person who met me at the Hôtel Charbonne, sir. The Vicomte de Valmé.”

“You can leave Bertrand to me,” interposed the Marquis. “This is all very well thought of, sir, but when does our marriage take place?”

“Your marriage, my son, takes place when Miss Challoner has had time to buy her bride-clothes. I shall leave you to decide the rest. My ingenuity falls short of planning your wedding trip.”

“You surprise me, sir. I shall take you into Italy, Mary. Will you come with me?”

“Yes, sir, with all my heart,” said Mary, smiling at him.

His hand went out to her across the table. The Duke said drily: “Delay your affecting demonstrations a moment longer, Vidal. I have to inform you that your late adversary was, when I left England, on the road to recovery.”

“My late adversary?” frowned his lordship. “Oh, Quarles! Was he, sir?”

“You do not appear to feel any undue interest in his fate,” remarked Avon.

The Marquis was looking at Mary. He said casually: “It makes no odds to me now, sir. He can live for all I care.”

“How very magnanimous!” said his grace with gentle satire. “Perhaps it may interest you to learn that the gentleman has been—er—induced to make a statement which obviates the need for your exile.”

Vidal turned his head, surveying his father with candid admiration. “I should like to know how you induced him to make such a statement, sir, I admit. But I did not leave England for fear of the runners.”

Avon smiled. “Did you not, my son?”

“No, sir, and you know it. I left at your command.”

“Very proper,” said his grace, rising. “I have no doubt I shall be weak enough to command your return—when you get back from Italy.” His eyes rested for an instant on Miss Challoner. “I comfort myself with the reflection that your wife will possibly be able to curb your desire—I admit, a natural one for the most part—to exterminate your fellows.”

“I shall try not to disappoint you, sir,” said Miss Challoner demurely.

It was past noon when Gaston returned with his charges. Miss Challoner felt extremely nervous of meeting the Duchess of Avon, but that lady’s entrance put all her fears to flight.

Her grace came into the parlour like a small whirlwind, and cast herself into her husband’s arms. “Monseigneur!” she cried joyfully. “I am so very glad you have come! I thought I should not have to tell you anything about it, but it is all so difficult I cannot manage it in the least, and Rupert will not try because he only thinks of getting all that wine home. Monseigneur, he has bought dozens and dozens of bottles of wine. I could not stop him. He says first he will hire a coach, and now he says no, it must go by canal.”

“It must undoubtedly go by canal,” said his grace, betraying a faint interest. He removed his ruffle from his wife’s clutch. “May I ask, Léonie, why you must needs elope with Rupert in this distressing fashion?”

“But do you not know, then?” she demanded. “If you don’t know, why are you here, Monseigneur? You are teasing me! Where is Dominique? Gaston said that he was with you.”

“He is,” said his grace.

“Then of course you know. Oh, Monseigneur, he says he will marry that girl, and I have a great fear she is like the sister whom I found detestable!”

The Duke took her hand and led her to Miss Challoner. “You shall judge for yourself,” he said. “This is Miss Challoner.”

The Duchess looked sharply up at him, and then at Mary, who stood still and looked gravely back at her. Léonie drew a long breath. “Voyons, are you the sister of that other one?” she demanded, not very lucidly.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Mary.

“Vraiment? But it is not at all credible, I find. I do not want to be rude, but—”

“In that case, my love, you had better refrain from making the comparisons that are on the lips of your very unguarded tongue,” interposed his grace.

“I was not going to say anything indiscreet,” the Duchess assured him. “But I say one thing. If you do not like it, Monseigneur, I am sorry, but I am not going to permit that my son abducts this Mary Challoner and then does not marry her. I say he shall marry her at once, and Rupert shall fetch that Hammond person, who has the manners of a pig.”

“These continued references to Mr. Hammond—a gentleman quite unknown to me—I find most tedious,” complained his grace. “If his manners are those of a pig, I beg that Rupert will refrain from fetching him.”

“But you do not understand, Justin. He is a priest.”

“So I have been led to infer. I believe it will not be necessary for us to disturb him.”

The Duchess took Miss Challoner’s hand, and held it. She faced her husband resolutely. “Monseigneur, you must listen to me. When I thought that this child was—was—”

“Pray do not continue, my dear. I understand perfectly. If you will permit me to—”

“No, Monseigneur,” she said firmly. “This time it is I who must speak. When I thought this child was not a respectable person, I said Dominique should not marry her. I made Rupert bring me to Dijon because I thought I would be very clever and arrange everything so that you would never know—”

“This touching but misplaced confidence in your powers of concealment, ma mie—”

“Justin, you shall listen to me!” said the Duchess. “Of course I might have known you would find out—how did you, Monseigneur? It was very clever of you, I think. No, no, let me speak!—I meant that Dominique should not marry Mademoiselle Challoner. But now I have seen her, and I am not a fool, me, and she is a person entirely respectable, and this time I do not care what you may say, Dominique is to marry her.”

His grace looked down at her impassively. “Quite right, my dear. He is,” he said.

The Duchess opened her eyes very wide indeed. “You do not mind, Monseigneur?”

“I cannot conceive why I should be supposed to mind,” said his grace. “The marriage seems to be eminently desk-able.”

The Duchess let go of Miss Challoner to fling out her hands. “But, Monseigneur, if you do not mind why did you not say so at once?” she demanded.

“You may perhaps recall, my love, that you forbade me to speak.”

The Duchess paid no attention to this, but said with her usual buoyancy: “Voyons, now I am quite happy!” She looked at Mary again. “And you—I think you will be very good to my son, n’est-ce pas?”

Miss Challoner said: “I love him, ma’am. I can only say that. And—and thank you—for your____”

“Ah, bah!” Léonie said. “I do not want to be thanked. Where is Rupert? I must tell him at once that everything is arranged.”

Lord Rupert, who had evidently been detained outside, came into the room at this moment. He seemed preoccupied, and addressed himself at once to his brother. “Damme, Avon, I’m devilish glad you’ve come!” he said. “The Lord knows I never thought I should want to see you, but we’re in a plaguey difficulty.”

“No, we are not, Rupert!” Léonie told him. “It is all arranged.”

“Eh?” His lordship seemed surprised. “Who arranged it?”

“Oh, but Monseigneur, of course! They are to be married.”

Rupert said disgustedly: “Lord, can’t you think of aught beside that young fire-eater of yours?” He took hold of one of the silver buttons on his grace’s coat, and said confidentially: “It’s a mighty fortunate thing you’ve arrived, Avon, ’pon my soul it is. I’ve got six dozen of burgundy, and about three of as soft a port as ever I tasted, lying back in Dijon. I bought ’em off the landlord of some inn or another we stayed at, and the devil’s in it I can’t pay for ’em.”

“Monseigneur, I am quite ennuyée with this wine,” said Léonie, “Do not buy it! I do not wish to travel with bottles and bottles of wine.”

“May I request you to unhand me, Rupert?” said his grace. “If you have purchased port it must of course go by water. Did you bring a bottle with you?”

“Bring a bottle? Lord, I’ve brought six!” said Rupert. “We’ll crack one at once, and if you don’t find I’m right—well, you’ve changed, Justin, and that’s all there is to it.”

Léonie said indignantly: “Rupert, I do not care what you do, but I wish to present you to Mademoiselle Challoner, who is to marry Dominique.”

His lordship was roused to look round. “What, is she here?” He perceived Mary at last. “So you’re the girl that confounded nevvy of mine ran off with!” he said. “I wish you joy of him, my dear. A pretty dance you’ve led us. You’ll forgive me if I leave you at this present. There’s a little matter demanding my attention. Now, Avon, I’m with you.

Léonie called after him: “But Rupert, Rupert! Where are Juliana and M. Comyn?”

Rupert looked back from the doorway to say: They’ll be here soon enough. Too soon for my liking. Stap me if ever I saw such a pair for ogling and holding hands. It’s enough to turn a man’s stomach. Their chaise fell behind.’

He went out as he spoke, and Léonie turned to Miss Challoner with a gesture of resignation. “He is mad, you understand. You must not be offended with him, for presently he will recover, I assure you.”

“I could not be offended, ma’am,” said Miss Challoner. “He makes me want to laugh.” She moved a little away from the Duchess. “Madame, are you—are you sure that you wish me to marry your son?”

Léonie nodded. “But yes, I am quite sure, petite.” She sat down by the fire, and held out her hand. “Come, ma chère, you shall tell me all about it, please, and—I think, not cry, hein?”

Miss Challoner dabbed at her eyes. “No, ma’am, certainly not cry,” she said rather tremulously.

Ten minutes later Miss Marling came in to find her friend seated at the Duchess’s feet, with both her hands clasped in Léonie’s. She said brightly: “Oh, Aunt Léonie, is it all decided, then? Has my Uncle Justin given his consent? I vow it is famous!”

Léonie released Miss Challoner and stood up. “Yes, it is quite famous, as you say, Juliana, for now I am to have a daughter, which will amuse me very much, and Dominique is to make no more scandals. Where is M. Comyn? Do not tell me you have quarrelled again?”

“Good gracious, no!” replied Juliana, shocked. “Uncle Rupert met us in the hall, and he took Frederick off with him to that room over the way. I think they are all there. I am certain I saw Vidal.”

“Voyons, it is insupportable!” said her grace. “Do they all go off to drink Rupert’s wine? I won’t have it!” She went quickly out into the hall with Miss Challoner, who followed in the direction of her accusingly levelled finger, and frankly laughed. Through the archway that gave on to the coffee-room the outraged Duchess could see her son, seated on the edge of a table with one foot swinging, and a glass in his hand. Lord Rupert was in the background, holding a bottle, and speaking to somebody outside Léonie’s range of vision. A burst of laughter set the seal to her grace’s wrath She promptly walked into the coffee-room, saw that not only Mr. Comyn, but her husband also, was there, and said reproachfully: “But I find you extremely rude, all of you! One would say this wine of Rupert’s, of which I have already heard enough, was of more importance than the betrothal of Dominique. Ma fille, come here!”

Miss Challoner came and shook her head. “Dreadful, madam!” she said.

“Devil a bit!” said Lord Rupert. “We’re drinking your health, my dear.” He saw Vidal smile across at Miss Challoner, and raise his glass in a silent toast, and said hastily: “That’ll do, Vidal, that’ll do! Don’t start fondling, for the love of God, for I can’t bear it. Well, what d’ye say, Justin? Will you buy it or not?”

His grace sipped the wine, while Lord Rupert watched him anxiously. The Duke said: “Almost the only evidence of intelligence I find in you, Rupert, lies in your ability to pick a wine. Decidedly I will buy it.”

“Now that’s devilish good of you, ’pon my word it is!” said his lordship. “Damme, if I don’t let you have a dozen bottles of it!”

“Your generosity, my dear Rupert, quite overwhelms me,” said his grace with polite gratitude.

Léonie stared at his lordship. “Let Monseigneur—oh, but that is too much, enfin!”

“No, no,” replied his lordship recklessly. “He shall have a dozen: that’s fair enough. Give your mother a glass, Vidal—oh, and what’s the girl’s name? Sophia! Give her a glass too, for I’ve—”

“Mary!” snapped the Marquis, with a sudden frown. _

His uncle was quite unabashed. “Mary! so it is. Sophia was t’other one. Well, give her a glass, my boy. I’ve a toast for you to drink.”

Léonie accepted the glass her son handed her. “Yes, it is true that I wish very much to drink to my son and daughter,” she said. “Go on, Rupert.”

His lordship raised his glass. “Dijon!” he said quite unheeding, and drank deeply.