Kelly was true to his word, and used so much despatch that within two days he extorted a promise from Lord Oxford to undertake the muslin trade in England, as the cant phrase went. Possibly he might have won that same promise before had used the same despatch. But Lord Oxford's foible was to hold long discourses, and Mr. Pope truly said that he had an epical habit of beginning everything at the middle. However it may be, the two men left the Manor on the morning of the third day. Wogan drove back with the Parson as far as Worcester, who for the first few miles remained in a melancholy silence, and then burst out of a sudden.

'To think that she should be mewed up in a corner of Herefordshire, with no companions but drunken rustics! Mated to an old pantaloon, too!'

'Sure it was her ladyship's own doing,' murmured Wogan.

'No woman in all London could hold a candle to her. And we distrusted her--we distrusted her, Nick.' He beat a clenched fist into the palm of his other hand to emphasise the enormity of the crime. 'Why, what impertinent fools men are!'

Then he again relapsed into silence and again broke out.

'Damme! but Fortune plays bitter tricks upon the world. 'Tis all very well to strike at a pair of rascals like you and me, Nick, but she strikes at those who offend her least. Faith, but I am bewildered. Here is a woman indisputably born to be a queen and she is a nurse. And no better prospect when my lord dies than a poor jointure and a dull Dower House.'

'Oh, she told you that, did she?' said Wogan. 'Sure it was a queenly complaint.'

'She made no complaint,' said Kelly fiercely. 'She would not--she could not. It is a woman of unexampled patience.'

He grumbled into silence, and his thoughts changed and turned moodily about himself.

'Why did I ever preach that sermon?' he exclaimed. 'But for that I might now have the care of half-a-dozen rambling parishes. Instead of hurrying and scurrying from one end of Europe to the other, at the risk of my neck, I might sit of an evening by the peat fire of an inn kitchen and give the law to my neighbour. I might have a little country parsonage all trailed over with roses, and leisure to ensure preferment by my studies and enjoy the wisdom of my Latin friend Tully. I might have a wife, too,' he added, 'and maybe half a score of children to plague me out of my five wits with their rogueries.'