Lady Selina shuddered, and stamped her foot; and inarticulately declared that if she’d had a dagger to her hand, she’d have stabbed him.
“Well, Sir Jasper’s done it for you, very neat, in the leg.”
Selina interrupted with another scream.
“Sir Jasper? Why, he was worse! Oh, how glad I was to see My Lord Kilcroney run him through!”
“I’m sure,” said Pamela, a little dryly, “it is a mercy, my Lady, I came alone after you and Mr. Bellairs! Mr. Bellairs is engaged to me, my Lady, and I don’t seem to fancy a hole in him.”
Lady Selina was much too absorbed in her own grief to have a thought to spare for any such trifles. She fell again into her chair, cast her arms upon the table and buried her face on them, wailing, in an extravagance of despair, that her Fred would never forgive her, and that there was nothing left for her but death.
“Why, there’s no harm done,” Pamela briskly consoled. “I’m ready to vouch for you that you’ve travelled with me, and slept with me——” she broke off. Her quick ear had caught the sound of certain well-known accents in the courtyard without.
“Glory be to God,” my Lord was saying, in his richest brogue. “Will anyone catch me that young gentleman by the leg? He’s not safe to be loose. Trip him up, I tell you, or there’ll be murder done! Come back, Simpson, you omadhaun!”
Pamela made a spring for the door; she had said that she would not have a hole made in her Jocelyn: heaven knew what catastrophe might not ensue were she not on the spot to prevent mischief with Bellairs, apt as tinder, and this young Simpson in his fury! She went like the wind down the passage, and across the bar, towards that spot in the courtyard whence arose sounds of struggle and fierce objurgation.
She found a slim young gentleman in uniform locked in the embrace of Lord Kilcroney. My Lord was laughing so considerably that it threatened to invalidate his grip. The young officer’s countenance shocked Pamela, so disfigured was it by rage and jealousy.