‘God bless her, poor child,’ said Sir
Marmaduke, rubbing the tears away from his eyes with
his red silk pocket-handkerchief.
’I will acknowledge that those letters—there
may have been one or two— were the beginning
of the trouble. It was these that made this man
show himself to be a lunatic. I do admit that.
I was bound not to talk about your coming, and I told
her to keep the secret. He went spying about,
and found her letters, I suppose, and then he took
fire because there was to be a secret from him.
Dirty, mean dog! And now I’m to be told
by such a fellow as Outhouse that it’s my fault,
that I have caused all the trouble, because, when
I happened to be in Devonshire, I went to see your
daughter!’ We must do the Colonel the justice
of supposing that he had by this time quite taught
himself to believe that the church porch at Cockchaffington
had been the motive cause of his journey into Devonshire.
‘Upon my word it is too hard,’ continued
he indignantly. ’As for Outhouse, only
for the gown upon his hack, I’d pull his nose.
And I wish that you would tell him that I say so.’
‘There is trouble enough without that,’
said Sir Marmaduke.
’But it is hard. By G—, it is
hard. There is this comfort: if it hadn’t
been me, it would have been some one else. Such
a man as that couldn’t have gone two or three
years without being jealous of some one. And as
for poor Emily, she is better off perhaps with an accusation
so absurd as this, than she might have been had her
name been joined with a younger man, or with one whom
you would have less reason for trusting.’
There was so much that seemed to be sensible in this,
and it was spoken with so well assumed a tone of injured
innocence, that Sir Marmaduke felt that he had nothing
more to say. He muttered something further about
the cruelty of the case, and then slunk away out of
the club, and made his way home to the dull gloomy
house in Manchester Street. There was no comfort
for him there but neither was there any comfort for
him at the club. And why did that vexatious Secretary
of State send him messages about blue books?
As he went, he expressed sundry wishes that he was
back at the Mandarins, and told himself that it would
be well that he should remain there till he died.
CHAPTER LXV
MYSTERIOUS AGENCIES
When the thirty-first of March arrived, Exeter had
not as yet been made gay with the marriage festivities
of Mr Gibson and Camilla French. And this delay
had not been the fault of Camilla. Camilla had
been ready, and when, about the middle of the month,
it was hinted to her that some postponement was necessary,
she spoke her mind out plainly, and declared that
she was not going to stand that kind of thing.
The communication had not been made to her by Mr Gibson
in person. For some days previously he had not
been seen at Heavitree, and Camilla had from day to
Copyrights
He Knew He Was Right from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
