“I’m saying nothing to the contrary, Maude. But even if Reform was right, it cannot be carried. We must drive the nail that will go. That is only good common-sense, Maude.”

“Mark my words, John. Reform will have to come, and better now than later. That which fools do in the end, wise men do in the beginning. I know, I know.”

“On this subject thou knowest nothing whatever, Maude. Now, then, I am going to have a bit of sleep. But I will say thus far–as soon as ever I am sure that I am on a wrong road I won’t go a step further. John Atheling is not the man to carry a candle for the devil.”

With these words he threw his bandana handkerchief over his head, adding, “He hoped now he had a ‘right’ to a bit of sleep.” Then Mrs. Atheling went softly out of the room. There was a tolerant smile on her face, for she was not deceived by the Squire’s habit of dignifying his self-assertions and his self-indulgences with the name of “rights.”

CHAPTER TENTH
TROUBLE COMES UNSUMMONED

Never had the ducal palace of Richmoor been more splendidly prepared for festivity than on the night of the first of March, 1831. And yet every guest present knew that it was not a festival, but a gathering of men and women moved by the gravest fears for the future. The long suites of parlours, brilliantly lighted, were crowded with peers and noble ladies, wearing, indeed, the smiles of conventional pleasure; but all of them eager to discuss the portentous circumstances by which they were environed.

Annabel stood at the right hand of the Duchess, but was strangely distrait and silent. Everything had gone wrong with her. It had been a day of calamity. She began it with a fret and a scold, and her maid Justine had been from that moment in a temper calculated to provoke to extremities her impatient mistress. Then her costume did not arrive till some hours after it was due; and when examined, it was found to be very unbecoming. She had been persuaded to select a pale blue satin, simply because she had tired of every other colour; and she was disgusted with the effect of its cold beauty against her olive-tinted skin. She wore out Justine’s temper with the variety of her suggestions, and her angry impatience with every effort. The girl became sulkily silent, then defiantly silent, then, after a most unreasonable burst of anger, actively impertinent, so much so that she left Annabel only one way of retaliation–an instant dismissal. She lifted her purse passionately, counted out the money due, and, pushing it contemptuously towards the girl, told her “to leave the house instantly.”

To her utter amazement, Justine pushed back the money. “I will not take it,” she said. “I have no intention of leaving the house until I see the ring in your possession–the ring in your purse, Miss–returned to the owner of it.”

If Annabel had been struck to the ground, she could not have been more confounded and bewildered; and Justine saw and pushed her advantage. “Miss knows,” she continued, “that police detectives are watching night and day the innocent men whose duties are on this corridor. Any hour some little thing may cause one of them to be suspected and arrested; and then who but I could save him from the gallows? No, Miss, I shall not leave till you give up the ring–till the real th–the real taker of it is known.”