"What means this?" said she. "You shall do as I bid you, Mistress Megrim. How dare you!" cried Lady Standish with a sudden flash of comprehension. "Why, woman, my letter is to the Bishop!"
"Oh," quoth Mistress Megrim, still with reserve, yet condescending to approval, "that is another matter! Shall I," she sniffed, "be stricter than becomes a Christian? Shall I refuse aid to the bruised sinner or to the smoking lamp whose conscience is awakened? May his Lordship be a tower of strength to your Ladyship along the rocky paths of penitence—Amen!"
SCENE VIII
In ten minutes a fair lady may do much to enhance her fairness. As Mistress Bellairs took a last look at her mirror, while Lydia bustled out to call a hired chair, she bestowed upon her reflection a smile of approval which indeed so charming an image could not fail to call forth. Then she huddled herself in a mysterious and all enveloping cloak, caught up a little velvet mask from the table, and sped upon her errand. She sallied forth as the gallant soldier might to battle, with a beating heart yet a high one.
Lord Verney and Captain Spicer had just finished breakfast at the former's lodgings in Pierrepoint Street, near North Parade. Captain Spicer, babbling ineptly of his own experience as a duellist, of his scorn of Sir Jasper's lunacy, yet of his full determination to slay the vile madman, had done ample justice to his young principal's table. But Lord Verney, his cheek now darkly flushed, now spread with an unwholesome pallor, found it hard to swallow even a mouthful of bread, and restlessly passed from the contemplation of the clock and the setting of his watch to the handling of his pistols, or the hasty addition of yet another postscript to the ill-spelt, blotted farewell epistle he had spent half the night in inditing to the Dowager his mother: "In case, you know..." he had said to his friend, with a quiver in his voice.
Captain Spicer had earnestly promised to carry out his patron's last wishes in the most scrupulous manner.
"My dear Lord," he had said, grasping him by the hand, "rely upon me. Gad, Sir Jasper is a devil of a shot I hear, and of course, he, he! we all know the saying—the strength of a madman. But no sooner has he laid you, Harry, than I vow, upon my honour, I shall hold him at my sword's point. I will revenge thee, Harry, never fear of that. 'Twill be a mighty genteel story, and the world will ring with it. Egad, he will not be the first I have spitted as easy as your cook would spit a turkey. Have I not learnt of the great Angelo Malevolti himself? He, he—'A woman's hand,' he would say, 'and the devil's head!'"
Here Captain Spicer shook out his bony fingers from the encumbering ruffles and contemplated them with much satisfaction.
"Oh, hang you, Spicer, be quiet, can't you!" cried Lord Verney petulantly.