At length we heard the tread of Dudley’s thick boots on the oak boards, and faint and muffled the sound of his voice as he cross-examined old Wyat before entering the chamber of audience.

I think he suspected quite another visitor, and had no expectation of seeing the particular young lady, who rose from her chair as he entered, in an opportune flood of tears, crying—­

’Oh, Dudley, Dudley!—­oh, Dudley, could you?  Oh, Dudley, your own poor Sal!  You could not—­you would not—­your lawful wife!’

This and a good deal more, with cheeks that streamed like a window-pane in a thunder-shower, spoke Sarah Matilda with all her oratory, working his arm, which she clung to, up and down all the time, like the handle of a pump.  But Dudley was, manifestly, confounded and dumbfoundered.  He stood for a long time gaping at his father, and stole just one sheepish glance at me; and, with red face and forehead, looked down at his boots, and then again at his father, who remained just in the attitude I have described, and with the same forbidding and dreary intensity in his strange face.

Like a quarrelsome man worried in his sleep by a noise, Dudley suddenly woke up, as it were, with a start, in a half-suppressed exasperation, and shook her off with a jerk and a muttered curse, as she whisked involuntarily into a chair, with more violence than could have been pleasant.

’Judging by your looks and demeanour, sir, I can almost anticipate your answers,’ said my uncle, addressing him suddenly.  ’Will you be good enough—­pray, madame (parenthetically to our visitor), command yourself for a few moments.  Is this young person the daughter of a Mr. Mangles, and is her name Sarah Matilda?’

‘I dessay,’ answered Dudley, hurriedly.

‘Is she your wife?’

‘Is she my wife?’ repeated Dudley, ill at ease.

‘Yes, sir; it is a plain question.’

All this time Sarah Matilda was perpetually breaking into talk, and with difficulty silenced by my uncle.

’Well, ‘appen she says I am—­does she?’ replied Dudley.

‘Is she your wife, sir?’

‘Mayhap she so considers it, after a fashion,’ he replied, with an impudent swagger, seating himself as he did so.

‘What do you think, sir?’ persisted Uncle Silas.

‘I don’t think nout about it,’ replied Dudley, surlily.

‘Is that account true?’ said my uncle, handing him the paper.

‘They wishes us to believe so, at any rate.’

’Answer directly, sir.  We have our thoughts upon it.  If it be true, it is capable of every proof.  For expedition’s sake I ask you.  There is no use in prevaricating.’

‘Who wants to deny it?  It is true—­there!’

‘There! I knew he would,’ screamed the young woman, hysterically, with a laugh of strange joy.

‘Shut up, will ye?’ growled Dudley, savagely.

‘Oh, Dudley, Dudley, darling! what have I done?’