"Say that he only has the whip-hand pour le present, dear Sir Lionel, said Mrs. Wingfield, taking both his hands in a pretty, beseeching way.
"Or we women shall eat our hearts out in pity for your chains," said
Vaura softly, coming near him.
"You are a pretty group of gamblers," he said, thinking there had been a wager among them; "but I must win when fair hands throw the dice."
Delrose had unconsciously given his foe some ecstatic moments, for the crowd so pressed about him to hear what answer he would make to the bold denial of the black-bearded Major that Vaura was close enough to hear his heart-beats, and to whom he whispered brokenly—
"All the nun's words will not avail, darling, after his false denial;
I must bring on my other proofs for both our sakes, beloved."
"Poor, tired Lion.; I wish I could help you," she whispered from behind her fan, and he felt her yield to the pressure of the crowd and come closer.
"You do, sweet; I feel just now strong and weak; you understand?"
One glance up from her fan and he is satisfied.
But the conjectures as to whether Sir Lionel will or can reply to
Delrose are put to rest by his voice again filling the air—
"To seem, and to be, are as unlike as are the hastily constructed bulwarks of the savage tribes as compared with a solid British fortress; we soldiers know this, and that Major Delrose. should still entrench himself behind the flimsy seeming of days of yore, where he was safe through my careless good-nature (we shall call it), in allowing it to be supposed that I had robbed Colonel Clarmont of his wife, submitting to the stigma so that his act would not stand in the way of his promotion as this poor nun has told you; you will wonder why I was careless. Because, for reasons of my own, I had forsworn matrimony, as I then thought, for all time. But Madame Grundy has lately revived this scandal, making a lash for my back with it for the hands of Dame Rumour. I have determined to stamp it out at once, and for ever! And now to pull down the bulwarks of Major Delrose." And holding up his hand, a signal agreed on with his servant, Sims at once ushered a priest and a small boy, who was masked, and who walked, as if asleep, up to the head of the room. Father Lefroy, saying a word to the nun in an undertone, lifted the boy to a chair beside her; now, standing beside them, in calm measured tones, he spoke as follows:—