"Oh hush, hush," said Baby, rebuking she knew not what spirit of sacrilegious curiosity. "Hush! It is Harry English, uncle!"
Slowly the man got up from his knees and looked round; then his eye came back to Sir Arthur.
"Harry English!" repeated Lady Aspasia's lips, voicelessly.
Her mind leaped; an irrepressible lightning satisfaction wrote itself on her harsh, handsome face; then her glance swept over the bed, and the corners of her mouth went down in a grimace. There lay Death—Death already, or very near, or she had never seen it. A double release! This double release was unnecessary—nay, a complication. Fate played such tricks at times! But Sir Arthur had staggered and reeled, and Lady Aspasia, ever practical, had to postpone thought for action. She caught him firmly by the elbow:
"Hold up, Arty; be a man."
The Lieutenant-Governor's first impulse had naturally been to deny the monstrous thought, to wither Aspasia for her impious suggestion. Then a look at the black and white portrait over the dressing-table, fitfully but vividly illumined by the flames of the draught-blown candles—a look from that strong presentment to the pallid-faced, black-haired man by the bed, brought an overwhelming conviction. He faltered under it. For a while he could collect no words, no thought; but presently, as the tide of blood began slowly to recede, eddying, from his brain, broken phrases escaped him, almost in a whisper:
"Your—your conduct is infamous, sir," he babbled, "ungentlemanly—ungentlemanly in the extreme!" ...
Harry English, with one hand on Rosamond's quiet breast as if mutely claiming his own, spoke then, his eyes on the creature who had robbed him.
"Your place, sir, is no longer here," he said. His voice was very low, but it contained an authority which Sir Arthur instinctively felt with a fresh spasm of indignation and self-pity, trembling upon tears. "Your place is no longer here," repeated English. "Leave the room."
The Lieutenant-Governor fairly suffocated: