The Foundling

Chapter X

The Duke did not borrow Mrs. Appleby’s gig again until the following afternoon, for the morning was fully taken up with purchasing such articles of apparel and toilet as he considered necessary for his protégé’s comfort and respectability. His notions did not always jump with Tom’s, since he laid what that young gentleman considered to be undue stress on the indispensability of soap and tooth-powder, and other such frivolous luxuries. Nor did Tom perceive the necessity of carrying with him on his travels more than one shirt. But the Duke was firm on these points, and after dealing patiently with a sudden and alarming fit of independence in young Mr. Mamble, in which he was informed that Pa would not like his son and heir to be beholden to anyone, he led him forth on a tour of the Baldock shops, assuring him that he would keep faithful tally of his expenditure, and present Pa with his bill in due course.

Mr. Mamble, whose resilient constitution Gilly could not but envy, had very soon recovered from his malaise, and had got up from his bed on the previous evening in time to work his way steadily through two glazed veal olives, a collop of beef, part of a leg of pork, two helpings of ratafia pudding, and a felly. He told Gilly, after this repast, that he was now in bang-up form; and after selecting two apples from a dish on the side-table, which he set aside to be consumed when pangs or hunger should attack him later in the evening, he settled down before the fire, and poured forth a jumbled history of his life and its trials to his sympathetic host. From this recital Gilly gathered that his mother had died when he was still in short-coats, and that his remaining parent, who seemed to have prospered exceedingly in his business, had set his heart and his considerable energy on to the task of turning his heir into an out-and-out gentleman. To this end he had engaged Mr. Snape, whose unenviable duty it was to instruct Tom in every branch of a gentleman’s education, to keep him out of mischief and low company, and to guard him from the chances of chills or infection. Mr. Snape appeared to be a joyless individual, whom the Duke found no difficulty at all in disliking. He very soon perceived that Tom’s lot was worse than his own had been, for whereas Lord Lionel was naturally untroubled by considerations of gentility, and had been quite as determined that his nephew should learn to clean his own guns, saddle and bridle his horses (and even shoe them), carve joints, and protect himself with his fists, as that he should acquire a proper knowledge of the Humanities, Mr. Mamble was morbidly anxious that Tom should engage on no occupation which might lead supercilious persons to suppose that he was not born into the haut ton. Consequently, poor Tom, himself unaffected by social ambitions, had been fenced in on all sides, his natural bents frowned upon, and his overflowing spirits curbed. The Duke, listening to him, felt real pity stir his heart, and thought that if he could lighten the lot of this oddly likeable boy he would have performed the first meritorious action of his life. Whatever the outcome of his interview with Mr. Liversedge, he would, he supposed, be journeying back to London within two days. If the zealous Mr. Snape had not by that time tracked his pupil down, he would take him to London, and from Sale House write a letter to Mr. Mamble, informing him that, having picked Tom up on the road, he had carried him to town, and would render him up to his parent whenever that busy gentleman could spare the time to visit the Metropolis. The Duke knew the world well enough to be sure that the knowledge that his son had fallen into noble company would suffice to allay Mr. Mamble’s wrath; and he had little doubt that if he chose to put himself to the trouble of doing it he could persuade Mr. Mamble to dismiss Mr. Snape, and send his son to school. If, on the other hand, Mr. Snape arrived in Baldock before he had left for London, the Duke, who had never made the least push to deal with his own tutor, anticipated no difficulty in dealing with Tom’s. As for the desirability of setting an anxious parent’s mind at rest without loss of time, he dismissed this without compunction. It would ill become him, he thought, to waste any consideration on Tom’s father when he had none for his own far more estimable uncle. If Lord Lionel stood in need of a lesson, so, in greater measure, did Mr. Mamble, and he should have it. Meanwhile, he would keep Tom safely out of harm’s way—and heaven alone knew what harm Tom would plunge into if allowed to wander about the countryside alone and gratify his longing to see all the sights of London.

Tom, whose mind knew no half-shades, had swiftly passed from suspicion of his benefactor to wholehearted admiration for him. His scruples having been relieved by the Duke’s promise to render a strict account of any financial transaction incurred on his behalf to his father, he accepted a guinea to spend with alacrity, and assured the Duke of his ability to amuse himself while he was absent on his own affairs.

Accordingly, the Duke set out once more on his quest of the Bird in Hand, choosing this time to go by the pike-road as far as to the cross-road leading to Shefford. He was obliged to traverse some distance down a rough lane, but a little way beyond the village of Arlesey the Bird in Hand came into sight, a solitary alehouse standing amongst some tumbledown outhouses and barns, and displaying a weather-beaten and much obliterated sign on two rusty chains which creaked when the wind swayed them. The house was a small one, and might from its situation have been supposed to have catered merely for farm-labourers. It had a neglected appearance, but an impression that it was slightly sinister the Duke attributed to his imagination. He drew up, and alighted from the gig, tethering the cob to a post. At this hour of the day there were no signs of life about the inn, and when he reached the door, and entered the tap-room into which it led, he found no one there. The room was small, and foetid, with the fumes of stale smoke from countless clay pipes, and the droppings of gin and ale. The Duke’s nostrils curled fastidiously, and he walked over to an inner door, and pushed it open, calling: “House! house!”

After a prolonged pause, a spare individual in a plush waistcoat shining with grease shuffled out from the nether regions of the hostelry, and stood staring at the Duke with his mouth open and his watery eyes popping out of their sockets. Several teeth were missing from his jaw, and a broken nose added nothing to the comeliness of his face. The sight of a well-dressed stranger within the precincts of the inn appeared to bereave him of all power of speech.

“Good afternoon!” said the Duke pleasantly. “Have you a Mr. Liversedge staying at this inn?”

The man in the plush waist coat blinked at him, and said enigmatically: “Ah!”

The Duke drew out his pocket-book, and produced from it his cousin’s card. “Be so good as to take that up to him!” he said.

The man in the plush waistcoat wiped his hand mechanically on his breeches, and took the card, and stood holding it doubtfully, and still staring at the Duke. The sight of the pocket-book had made his eyes glisten a little, and the Duke could only be glad that he had had the forethought to leave the bulk of his money at the White Horse. The presence of the pistol in his pocket was also a comfort.

He was just about to request his bemused new acquaintance to bestir himself, when a door apparently leading out to the stableyard opened, and a burly man with grizzled hair and a square, ill-shaven countenance appeared upon the scene. He cast the Duke a swift, suspicious look out of his narrowed eyes, and asked in a wary tone what his business might be. The man in the plush waistcoat mutely held out Mr. Ware’s elegantly engraved visiting-card.

“I have business with Mr. Liversedge,” said the Duke.

This piece of information seemed to afford the newcomer no gratification, for he shot another and still more suspicious look at Gilly, and removed the card from his henchman’s hand. It took him a little time to spell out the legend it bore, but he did it at last, and it seemed to the Duke that although his suspicion did not abate, it became tinged with uneasiness. He fixed his eyes, which held no very pleasant expression, on the Duke, and palpably weighed him up. Apparently he saw nothing in the slight, boyish figure before him to occasion more than contempt, for his uneasy look vanished, and he gave a hoarse chuckle, and said: “Ho! It is, is it? Well, I dunno, but I’ll see.”

He then mounted a creaking stair, and the Duke was left to endure the gaze of the man in the plush waistcoat.

After a prolonged interval, the landlord reappeared. The Duke had caught the echoes of his voice raised in argument in some room above; and it seemed to him when he came downstairs that his uneasiness had returned. The Duke should have been able to sympathize with him: he was feeling a little uneasy himself.

“You’ll please to come up, sir,” said the landlord, with the air of one repeating a hard-learned lesson.

The Duke, who had slid one hand unobtrusively into the pocket of his drab Benjamin, and closed it round the reassuring butt of Mr. Joseph Manton’s pistol, drew a breath, and trod up the stairs.

He was led down a passage to a room at the back of the house. The landlord thrust the door wide, and announced him in simple terms: “Here he is, Sa—sir!” he said.

The Duke found himself upon the threshold of a square and not uncomfortable apartment which had been fitted up as a parlour. It was very much cleaner than the rest of the house, and it was plain that efforts had been made to achieve a semblance of elegance. The curtains, though faded, had lately been washed; the table in the centre of the room was covered with a red cloth; and one or two portable objects seemed to indicate that the guest at present inhabiting the room had brought with him various articles of furniture of his own.

Standing before a small fire was a middle-aged gentleman of somewhat portly habit of body, and a bland, pallid countenance surmounted by a fine crop of iron-grey hair, swept up into a fashionable Brutus. He was dressed with great propriety in a dark cloth coat and light pantaloons; the points of his shirt-collar brushed his whiskers; his cravat was arranged with nicety; and it was only upon closer examination that the Duke perceived that his elegant coat was sadly shiny, and his shirt by no means innocent of darns. There was a strong resemblance between him and the landlord, but his countenance had an air of unshakable good-humour, which the landlord’s lacked, and nothing could have exceeded the gentility with which he came forward, holding out a plump hand, and saying: “All, Mr. Ware! I am very happy to receive this visit from you!”

The Duke had by this time visualized the possibility of his corpse being cast into the evil-smelling pond beside the inn, but he could see no obligation on him to take Mr. Liversedge’s hand, he merely bowed. Mr. Liversedge, whose eyes had been running over him shrewdly, smiled more widely than ever, and drew out a chair from the table, and said: “Let us be seated, sir! Alas, you have come upon a very painful errand! I assure you I feel for you, sir, for I have been young myself, but my duty is to my unfortunate niece. Ah, Mr. Ware, you little know the pain and grief—I may say the chagrin—you have inflicted on one whose tender heart was been so undeservedly smitten!” Overcome by the picture his own words had conjured up, he disappeared for a moment or two into a large handkerchief.

The Duke sat down, and laid his hat on the table. He said in his diffident way: “Indeed, I am sorry for that, Mr. Liversedge. I should not wish to cause any female pain or grief.”

Mr. Liversedge raised his bowed head. “There,” he said, much moved, “speaks a member of the Quality! I knew it, Mr. Ware! True Blue! When my niece has wept upon this bosom, declaring herself forsaken and betrayed, My love, I have said, depend upon it a scion of that noble house will not fail to do you right! I thank God, Mr. Ware, that my faith in humanity is not to be rudely shaken!”

“I hope not, indeed,” said the Duke. “But, you know, I had no notion that your niece’s affections were so deeply engaged.”

“Sir,” said Mr. Liversedge, “you are young! you do not yet know the depths of woman’s heart!”

“No,” agreed the Duke. “But will money allay the—the pangs of grief and chagrin?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Liversedge simply.

The Duke could not help smiling at this. He said in a meek tone: “Forgive me, Mr. Liversedge, but is not a—a transaction of this nature repugnant to a man of your sensibility?”

“Mr. Ware,” said Mr. Liversedge, “I shall not conceal from you that it is deeply repugnant. I am, as you have divined, a man of sensibility, and it is with profound reluctance that I have compelled myself to take up the cudgels on behalf of my orphaned niece.”

“At her instigation?” murmured the Duke.

Mr. Liversedge surveyed him, a calculating look in his eye. “My niece,” he said, “has been put to great expense on account of expectations raised, Mr. Ware. I need not enumerate. But bride-clothes, you know, sir, and—”

“Five thousand pounds?” said Gilly, in bewildered accents.

They looked at one another. “I am persuaded,” said Mr. Liversedge reproachfully, “that you would not wish to do anything unhandsome, sir. Considering the elevated nature of my niece’s expectations, five thousand pounds cannot be considered an extortionate figure.”

“But I am quite unable to pay such a sum,” said Gilly.

Mr. Liversedge spread out his hands. “It is very disagreeable for me to be obliged to remind you, sir, that you are nearly related to one, who, I am persuaded, would not regard such a trifling sum any more than you or I would regard a crown piece.”

“Sale?” said the Duke. “Oh, he would never pay it!”

Mr. Liversedge said in a shocked voice: “I cannot be brought to believe, sir, that his Grace would grudge it!”

The Duke shook his head sadly. “I do not stand next to him in the succession, you know. I have two uncles, and a cousin before me. And my father, Mr. Liversedge, is not a rich man.”

“I cannot credit that his Grace would permit his name to be dragged through the mire of the Courts!” said Mr. Liversedge, with resolution.

“And I am sure,” said the Duke gently, “that you would shrink from dragging your niece’s name through that mire.”

“Shrink, yes,” acknowledged Mr. Liversedge. “But I shall steel myself, Mr. Ware. That is, I should do so if his Grace were to prove adamant. But what a shocking thing if the head of such a noble house should have so little regard for his name!”

“I wonder what course you had the intention of pursuing if I had fled to Gretna Green with your niece?” said the Duke thoughtfully. “For I cannot suppose that an alliance for her with anyone so lacking in fortune and expectation as myself was what you had in mind!”

“Certainly not,” replied Mr. Liversedge, without a blush. “But she is a minor, after all! little more than a child! The marriage might have been set aside—at a price.”

The Duke laughed. “Come, we begun to understand one another better! You may as well own, sir, that your object is to squeeze money from my noble relative, no matter on what pretext.”

“Between these four walls, Mr. Ware,” said Liversedge cheerfully. “Between these four walls!”

“How much it must disgust a man of your sensibility to be reduced to such straits!” observed the Duke.

Liversedge sighed. “It does, sir. In fact, it is quite out of my line.”

“What is your line?” enquired the Duke curiously.

Mr. Liversedge waved an airy hand. “Cards, sir, cards! I flatter myself I had established myself with every prospect of success. But Fate singled me out to be the object of vile persecution, Mr. Ware. I am—temporarily, of course—without the means to re-establish myself suitably, and you see me forced to eke out a miserable existence in surroundings which, I am persuaded, you will easily descry to be, totally unfitting for any man of gentility. You, Mr. Ware, who are putting up, I make no doubt, in the comfort of the George—an excellent hostelry!—can have little notion—”

“No, no, above my touch!” murmured the Duke demurely. “The White Horse!”

“The White Horse,” said Mr. Liversedge feelingly, “may not aspire to the elegance of the George, but compared with this hovel in which I am compelled to sojourn, Mr. Ware, it is a palace!”

The Duke did not deny it, and after a slight pause during which Mr. Liversedge appeared to dwell longingly on the amenities afforded by post-inns, that worthy gentleman heaved a sigh, and continued in a more optimistic tone: “However, I do not complain. Life, Mr. Ware, is full of vicissitudes! Let me but once come about, and I do not despair of finding just the locality for the opening of a house where gentlemen with a taste for play may be sure of finding entertainment. In all modesty, Mr. Ware, I will say that I have a talent above the ordinary for such enterprises. If ever I should have the happiness to welcome you to any house under my direction, I fancy you will be pleased with, what you will find. Nothing shoddy, I assure you, and admittance by password only. I shall pay particular attention to the quality of the wine in my cellar: nothing could be more fatal to the success of such a venture than to fob off one’s patrons with inferior wine! But to achieve my object, sir, I must have Substance. Without Substance the result, if any, must be shabby, and, as such, too far beneath me to be considered.”

“You are frank!” said the Duke. “My cousin Sale, in fact, is to set you up in some gaming-hell!”

“That,” said Mr. Liversedge, “is to put the matter with vulgar bluntness, Mr. Ware.”

“I fear I must wound your susceptibilities more deeply still! It is not your niece who makes this demand, but you, and the whole affair is a fudge!”

Mr. Liversedge smiled at him with great patience. “My dear sir, you wrong me, indeed you do!”

“I am very sure I do not! You have owned to me—”

A plump, uplifted hand checked him. “Between these four walls, Mr. Ware!” Liversedge said, with a return to his reproachful manner.

The Duke stared at him. Suddenly he said: “And what, sir, if I were to express my willingness to marry your niece? Have you thought of that?”

“Of everything!” Liversedge assured him affably. “I, of course, with my niece’s happiness in mind, should be overjoyed. But it would not do for you at all, Mr. Ware, and your noble relatives, I fear, would do what lay in their power to prevent such an unequal match. Alas that it should be so, but it is the way of the world, after all, and if I were your father, sir, I confess I should strain every nerve to put a bar between you and my poor Belinda. Love-begotten, you know. Dear me, yes! Quite ineligible! You are young, and impetuous, but I feel sure your relatives must see it as I do myself.”

“Mr. Liversedge,” said the Duke, “I do not believe that your niece has the least notion of suing me for breach of promise! You think to out-jockey me, to take me in like a goose, in fact! This is all a hoax! I daresay your niece knows nothing of the matter!”

Mr. Liversedge shook his head sorrowfully. “It pains me, Mr. Ware, to meet with this unmerited mistrust! it pains me excessively! I did not look to have my good faith so doubted; I did not expect, in face of all that has passed between you and my unfortunate niece, to be met with what I must—reluctantly, believe me!—term callousness! If you were an older man, sir, I should be strongly tempted to request you to name your friends. As it is, I shall content myself with bringing before you irrefutable proof of the integrity of my actions.”

He rose to his feet as he spoke, and the Duke followed suit rather warily. Liversedge smiled his understanding, and said: “Have no fear, Mr. Ware! A guest under my roof, you know, I must hold sacred, however moved I may be. Not, I beg you to believe, that I lay the least claim to this roof. But the principle holds! Pray be seated, for I shall not be long gone!”

He bowed with great dignity, and went out of the room, leaving the Duke to wonder what might be going to happen next. He walked over to the window restlessly, and stood fidgeting with the blind-cord. As he stood there, he had the satisfaction, at least, of seeing the landlord and the man in the plush waistcoat walking across the dirty yard with pails in their hands. From the medley of squeals in the distance he inferred that they were on their way to feed the pigs. He had not soberly supposed that either of them would be called in to overpower him, for he could not perceive any good end to be achieved through such methods, but he felt more at his ease with them out of earshot. Mr. Liversedge might be an entertaining scoundrel, but a scoundrel he certainly was, and would probably stop at very little to extort money from his victims. It was evident that he considered the supposed Mr. Ware a negligible opponent. The Duke had seen the indulgent contempt in his smile, and had done nothing to dispel it. He was by this time quite determined not to allow himself to be bled of as much as a farthing. By fair means or foul—and he would feel very little compunction at using foul means against a gentleman of Liversedge’s kidney—he must wrest Matthew’s letters, which Liversedge had in all probability gone away to collect, away from him. And since it seemed unlikely that this could be achieved without Mr. Manton’s pistol coming into play, he was happy to see the landlord and his henchman going off to feed the pigs.

Mr. Liversedge was absent for some ten minutes, but presently the Duke heard his ponderous tread, and turned round to face the door.

It opened; Mr. Liversedge’s voice said unctuously: “Come in, my love! Come and tell Mr. Ware how deeply he has wounded your tender heart!”

The Duke jumped, for this was a possibility he had not envisaged. The thought darted across his mind that if his true identity should be guessed it might occur to Mr. Liversedge’s fertile brain that the Duke of Sale, held to ransom, would prove a more profitable investment than his niece’s broken heart. His hand slid once more into the pocket of his coat, to grasp the butt of his pistol, and he braced himself to face the inevitable disclosure.

Into the room stepped a vision of loveliness. The Duke caught his breath, and stood staring. His cousin Matthew had certainly spoken of Belinda’s beauty, but he had not prepared him for anything as superb as the creature who now stood on the threshold, regarding him out of eyes so large, so innocent, and of so deep translucent a blue as to make his senses swim for a dizzy moment. He closed his own eyes involuntarily, and opened them again to make sure that they had not deceived him. They had not. He beheld a veritable beauty. A face of rose-leaf complexion was framed in a cascade of guinea-gold curls, artlessly bound with a ribbon of scarcely a deeper blue than those glorious eyes; the brows were delicately arched; the little nose classically straight; the wistful mouth, with its short upper-lip, as kissable as it was perfect in proportion.

The Duke swallowed once, and waited. That melting gaze widened a little as it rested on him, but the lady said nothing.

“Did not Mr. Ware promise you marriage, my love?” said Mr. Liversedge, closing the door, and bending solicitously over the vision.

“Yes,” said the vision, in a soft, west-country voice. “Oh, yes!”

If the Duke had been dizzy before, his senses now reeled. He could think of nothing to say. He wondered, for an unreasoning instant, if those tender blue eyes could be sightless, since he resembled his cousin hardly at all. But when he stared into them he saw a sort of speculation in their gaze, and knew that they were not.

“And did he not write you letters, my love, which you very properly gave to me, promising that he would make you his wife?” prompted Mr. Liversedge.

“Oh, yes, he did!” corroborated Belinda, smiling angelically at the Duke, and affording him an entrancing glimpse of even teeth, gleaming like pearls between her parted lips.

Mr. Liversedge spoke in a voice of studied patience.

“Were you not completely taken-in, my dear child? Was it not a crushing blow to you when he declared off and left you forsaken?”

Under the Duke’s bemused stare, the smile left Belinda’s face, and two large tears welled over, and rolled down her cheeks. “Yes, it was,” she said, in a voice that would have wrung pity from Herod. “He said I should have a purple silk dress when we was married.”

Mr. Liversedge interposed rather hastily, patting one dimpled hand. “To be sure, yes, and other things too! And now you have none of them!”

“No,” agreed Belinda dolefully. “But I shall be paid a vast sum of money for being so taken-in, and then I may have a—”

“Yes, my love, yes!” interrupted Mr. Liversedge. “You are upset, and no wonder! I would not have brought you face to face with Mr. Ware, who has so grossly deceived you, but that he doubted the depth of the wound he had dealt yon. I will not compel you to remain another instant in the same room with him, for I know it to be painful to you. Go, my love, and trust your uncle to care for your interests!”

He opened the door for her, and after another of her wide, innocent looks at the Duke, she dropped a curtsy, and withdrew.

Mr. Liversedge shut the door upon her, and turned to find the Duke standing still rooted to the spot, and lost in astonishment. He said: “Ah, Mr. Ware, I perceive that you are confounded!”

“Yes,” said Gilly faintly. That is—Good God, sir, what are you about to keep such a lovely creature in this noisome alehouse?”

“No one,” said Mr. Liversedge, “could regret the unhappy necessity more than I do! Alas, sir, when the pockets are to let, one has little choice of domicile! But I feel it! I assure you that I feel it profoundly. Your solicitude does you honour, Mr. Ware, and I trust it will be unnecessary for me to say more in prosecution of—”

“Mr. Liversedge,” interrupted the Duke, “you ask me to believe that you hold some two or three letters I was mad enough to write to your niece, and for these you are demanding the preposterous sum of five thousand pounds! I may deplore your choice of domicile, but this cannot affect the point of issue between us!”

“Five letters, Mr. Ware,” sighed Mr. Liversedge deprecatingly. “And each of them worth the very moderate price I have set upon them! I daresay your memory may not be not quite perfect. And so prettily expressed as your billets are! I will refresh your memory, if you will permit me! Pray be seated, sir! I should not wish you to feel that there was the least deception: five letters, and you recalled but three! Now, if I were not a man of honour, Mr. Ware, I might have allowed that to pass! You would have bought them from me, and thought yourself rid of the whole business! And I might then have driven a bargain with you for the remaining two! I know of those who would have done so. Yes, indeed, sir, I assure you there are many such shabby tricksters in the world. But Swithin Liversedge is not to be counted amongst them! Do but take your seat, and you shall see the letters with your own eyes! You may have them for a paltry sum. I will engage myself to give them up to you on receipt of bills for five thousand pounds.”

The Duke sat down again at the table, opposite to his host, in a drooping posture that, while it might deceive Liversedge into believing him to be overcome by consternation, enabled him to get his hands under the table-edge undetected. “You have the letters!” he uttered.

“Yes, Mr. Ware, yes!” beamed Liversedge. “You shall count them!”

He put his hand into the breast of his coat as he spoke, and as he glanced down, the Duke gripped the ledge of the table, and drove it violently forward. It caught Mr. Liversedge all unawares, and full in the midriff. He uttered a sound between a grunt and a shout, tried to save himself and failed. His chair tipped backwards, and he fell, snatching fruitlessly at the red table-cloth. In the same instant, the Duke, releasing the table, whipped the pistol from his pocket, and thumbed back the hammer. “Now, Mr. Liversedge!” he said, panting a little, for the table was a heavy one, and had taken all his strength, to thrust forward. “Don’t move! I am held to be a very fair shot.”

But the command was unnecessary. As he looked down at the portly frame at his feet, he saw that Mr. Liversedge was incapable of moving. His head had struck against the iron fender, and not only was a sluggish trickle of blood oozing from his scalp, but he was insensible. Mechanically, the Duke’s left hand went to his pistol, and grasped the hammer. He pressed the trigger, as Captain Belper had taught him to do, and gently released the hammer, easing it down. Still holding the pistol in his hand, he dropped on his knee beside Liversedge, and slipped his left hand into the breast of his coat. A slim package had been already half drawn from an inner pocket. He pulled it out, and swiftly assured himself that it did indeed contain some half a dozen letters directed in Matthew’s hand. It was characteristic of him that before he rose to his feet he slid a hand over Mr. Liversedge’s heart. It was beating rather faintly, but there was no doubt that its owner still lived. The Duke hauled his inanimate body, not without difficulty, clear of the grate, and rose to his feet. As he did so, the door opened, and he turned swiftly, his pistol at the ready, his thumb on the hammer. But he did not pull it back a second time. Belinda stood on the threshold, looking in wide-eyed surprise at her uncle’s prostrate form.

“Oh!” she said. “Is he dead?”

“No,” the Duke replied. He crossed the floor to her side, and shut the door. “He will recover: this is only a swoon! What made you hold your peace just now? You know I am not Matthew Ware!”

“Oh, yes!” she replied, smiling at him happily. “You are not at all like Mr. Ware! He is much bigger than you, and more handsome, too. I liked Mr. Ware. He said he would give me—”

“Why did you not inform your uncle of his mistake? What made you accept me as you did?”

“Uncle Swithin doesn’t like it when I dispute with him,” she explained. “He said I was to say just what he told me, and I should have a purple silk gown.”

“Oh!” said the Duke, a good deal taken aback. “I am excessively obliged to you, and if a purple silk gown is what you desire I would I could give you one! How old are you?”

“I think I shall soon be seventeen,” she answered.

“You think! But you know when you have a birthday, surely?”

“No,” said Belinda regretfully. “Uncle Swithin’s head is cut open.”

This remark seemed to be more in the nature of a statement than a reproach, but the Duke, glancing down at Mr. Liversedge’s form, saw that his pallid countenance was ghastly in hue, and felt a certain measure of compunction. He did not think that Mr. Liversedge was in much danger of bleeding to death, but he did not desire his death, and thought, moreover, that his own position might be awkward if this should happen. He bent over him again, and bound his own handkerchief round his head, saying: “When I am gone, you may summon help, but pray do not do so until then!”

“No,” said Belinda obediently. “I wish you was not going! Where did you come from?”

Her unconcern with her uncle’s plight made the Duke laugh in spite of himself. “I did not drop from a balloon, I assure you! I came from Baldock, and I think it is time that I returned there. Your uncle will be recovering in a moment, and since I do not care for the look of his friends belowstairs, I think I had best depart before he can summon them to his aid.”

“Mr. Mimms is very disagreeable,” she observed. She raised her lovely eyes to his face, and said simply: “I wish you would take me with you, sir!”

“Indeed, I wish I might!” he said. “I am very sorry to leave you in such a place. Were you fond of my—of Mr. Ware?”

“Oh, yes!” she replied, a soft glow in her eyes. “He was a very pretty-behaved gentleman, and when we were married he said I should have jewels, and a purple silk gown.”

The thought that his young cousin had wounded anyone so young and so beautiful had been troubling the Duke, but this artless speech considerably allayed his qualms. He smiled, and, colouring a little, said: “Forgive me—I have very little money in my pocket, but if your heart is set upon a silk gown—I do not know about such matters, but will you take this bill and buy yourself what you like?”

He had been half afraid that she might be offended, but she smiled in a dazzling way at him, and accepted the note he was holding out. “Thank you!” she said. “I had never any money to spend of my own before! I think you are quite as handsome as Mr. Ware!”

He laughed. “No, no, that is flattery, I fear! But I must not stay! Goodbye! Pray do not let your uncle use you again as he has done!”

He caught up his hat from the table, cast a final glance at Mr. Liversedge, who was beginning to recover his complexion, and went swiftly out of the room, and down the stairs. Belinda sighed regretfully, and looked in a doubtful way at her guardian. In a few more moments he groaned, and opened his eyes. They were blurred at first, but they cleared gradually. He put a hand first to his cracked skull, and then, instinctively, to his inner pocket. Then he groaned again, and enunciated thickly: “Lost!”

Belinda, a kind-hearted girl, perceiving that he was striving to pick himself up, helped him into a chair. “Your head is broke,” she informed him.

“I know that!” said Mr. Liversedge, tenderly feeling his skull. “That I should have been floored by a greenhorn! For God’s sake, girl, don’t stand there with your mouth half-cocked! Fetch me the brandy-bottle from the cupboard! Why did you not call Joe, silly wench? Five thousand pounds gone in the flash of an eye!”

Belinda brought him the brandy, and he recruited his strength by a generous pull at the bottle. His colour was by now much more healthy, but his spirits were sadly overborne.

“Done by a gudgeon!” he said gloomily. “Done by a miserable, undersized sapskull that has no more wits than to talk of marriage to the first pretty wench he meets! I was never more betwattled in my life! If I could but get my hands on your precious Mr. Matthew Ware—!”

“Oh, it wasn’t Mr. Ware!” said Belinda sunnily.

Mr. Liversedge raised his aching head from between his hands and stared at her in blear-eyed surprise. “What?” he demanded. “Did you say it was not Mr. Ware?”

“Oh, no! Mr. Ware is a much prettier young gentleman,” said Belinda. “He is tall, and handsome, and—”

“Then who the devil was he?” interrupted Mr. Liversedge incredulously.

“I don’t know. He did not say what his name was, and I didn’t think to ask him,” replied Belinda, rather regretfully.

Mr. Liversedge hoisted himself out of his chair with an effort. “My God, what have I done to be saddled with such a fool?” he exclaimed. “If he was not Ware,—why—why, girl, could you not have told me so?”

“I didn’t know you would wish me to,” said Belinda innocently. “You said I must say just what you told me, and you don’t like it if I don’t obey you. And I like him quite as well as Mr. Ware,” she added consolingly.

Mr. Liversedge boxed her ears.