Mistress Bellairs put the lean swarthy boy very composedly on one side by the merest touch of her hand, then she went over to the door, unlocked it and admitted Captain Spicer, green and sweating.
"I am coming, Spicer," cried Lord Verney desperately, and made a plunge for his hat and cloak, murmuring as he passed the lady: "Oh cruel!"
Kitty Bellairs nibbled her little finger and looked at the clock.
"It will not take you, you know," said she, "more than five minutes to drive down to the Bathwick ferry, therefore if you start in three you will still have twenty-six to spare. My Lord Verney, will you give me those three minutes?"
Lord Verney flung aside hat and cloak again, his face glowing with a dark flush.
"Oh," cried he, like a school-boy, "for God's sake, Spicer, wait outside."
"Nay," said Mistress Kitty, smiling to herself under her mask, "nay, I have need of Captain Spicer."
Lord Verney's face fell,
"Come hither," said she, and took him crestfallen by the hand and brought him to the table, where lay the writing materials he had been using but a little while ago. "Here," said she, "is a sheet of paper. Sit down, my Lord, and write, write," she said, and tapped his shoulder; "write, sir—thus:—
'Lord Verney begs to inform Sir Joseph Standish that he understands the grounds of the quarrel between them to lie in a gross misconception of Lord Verney's feelings for Lady Standish.'