"He has accomplished everything that a man of his age can dream of in the way of forbidden and perverse actions. First, you must know that the late Lord Mowbray was the greatest libertine of his time. He was interested in that famous abbey of Medmonham with Lord Sandwich, Sir Francis Dashwood, and that abominable John Wilkes, the author of the 'Essay upon Woman,' whose soul is still more hideous than his visage. In their orgies they parodied the very ceremonies of religion. It is related that one day—one night, rather—Lord Sandwich administered the Holy Sacrament to a dog, carrying out the full rites."
"How horrible!" exclaimed Esther, clasping her hands.
"Is it not?" murmured Lady Vereker in the same tone; at the same time an imperceptible smile appeared in the corners of both pairs of lips.
"But let us leave the father in the abode for which he was certainly destined, and speak of the son. He has had as his instructor in vice his own tutor, a Frenchman named Lebeau, who took good care to ruin his pupil in early life, the better to master him later. It was in company with this man that he made the tour of Europe, stopping for the most part in France and Italy. He was but a mere boy when he grossly deceived the daughter of the clergyman at Mowbray Park. It is said, too, that he was the instigator and confidant of the first follies of the Prince of Wales. He is fiercely hated by the king, but especially so by the queen. He and his friends make it their boast that there is not an incorruptible woman in existence. Their debauchery differs from that of their fathers in that it is savored with villany. As formerly, these young gentlemen, who call themselves Mohawks, walk the streets at night with blackened faces, quarrel with inoffensive wayfarers, stop women, strip them and either beat or cast them naked into casks of pitch which they have placed beneath sheds, and laugh until they drown the cries of their victims. As for the watchmen, they prick their legs with their swords, bind them to the door-knockers, and oblige them to light the scene with their lanterns. These are only their malicious tricks, for they do worse. More than once they have profited by popular broils, or by the quarrels which have been common since the beginning of the war, to carry away young girls, and send a father, a husband, or a troublesome lover to the shades. It is said that they are responsible for many a death, and that if one should visit the 'Folly' which Mowbray possesses near Chelsea, if one were to sound the walls which are riddled with secret passages, if one should search the cellars which the Thames is made to inundate at certain hours, perhaps one would find the explanation of the desperate cries which have been heard by night in the silence of the country; perhaps one would discover human remains, skeletons cramped into attitudes which would tell the tale of the ferocity which had abused their last agony!"
In speaking thus this strange woman was completely transformed. Lately so flippant and sceptical, as were the women of her time, who scarcely ever spoke without an accompanying smile, she had become more tragic than Siddons. She spoke in a low, swift, sibilant tone close into Esther's face, filling her with fear, magnetizing her with her dark glance, and crushing her hands in her grip of iron almost without knowing it. Esther seemed quite terrified. Thereupon Bella resumed, in a soft, imploring voice,—
"And such is the man who pretends to love you, who perhaps makes your heart beat at this moment. But I will save you. Your embarrassment, your emotion, have told me their story. Have done with it all, and cast yourself upon the bosom of a true friend. Tell me all."
These final words, which ought to have assured Lady Vereker's victory, were just the ones which compromised her. Her eyes betrayed an all too anxious, too passionate desire to learn the truth! Like lightning a suspicion crossed Esther's mind: Does Lady Vereker love Lord Mowbray?
"You appear to know him exceedingly well," she said.
The words were uttered so unexpectedly that for a moment Bella was thrown off her guard. Her cleverly tinted face concealed her internal emotions, but a twitching of the lips, a rapid fluttering of the eyelids, did not escape Esther, who had become all at once dangerously keen, as is the case of every woman who suspects and wishes to know.
"She is lying!" thought Esther, though aloud she said:—