The advent of my lord Stowmaries occurred in the nick of time, for she was on the verge of hysterics.
He knelt at her feet, adoring and excited. He told her all that had occurred during that momentous evening, humbly begging her pardon for having betrayed the secret of their mutual love, his own passion and his despair, to some of his most intimate friends.
Mistress Julia whose flushed face when my lord entered might have been caused by shyness at his stormy entrance, or by anger at the untimeliness of his visit, looked adorable in her obvious agitation. She chided him gently for his impetuosity, and for disclosing her tender secret to those who mayhap would sneer at her hopeless love.
Then my lord told her of Sir John Ayloffe's scheme, the proposed public disgrace of the tailor's daughter which would render the dissolution of the child-marriage not only probable but certain. Mistress Julia looked quite sad and shed sympathetic tears; she was so sorry, so very sorry for the poor dear child.
But when she heard that my lord had actually promised one hundred and twenty thousand pounds to his cousin Michael Kestyon for rendering him this service, the fair Julia frowned and checked an angry exclamation which had risen to her lips.
"The sum seems overvast," she remarked with affected indifference.
"The bribe had to be heavy, Mistress," replied my lord. "Michael was the only man who could help us. He might have refused for less. It had to be a fortune worth a gentleman's while to accept. Michael is a gentleman despite his roguery, and we were asking him to do a mighty villainous action. He had to be well paid for it," repeated the young man decisively, "methinks that for less he would have refused."
Mistress Peyton allowed the subject to drop for the moment and her lover to wander back into the realms of dithyrambic utterances, of vows and of sighs. But anon she recurred to the question of the money, showing a desire to know how and when it would be paid over.
"To-morrow when we have Michael's final acquiescence," said Stowmaries, eager to dismiss this question, "I will hand over fifty thousand pounds to him, and another seventy thousand the day on which Rose Marie Legros leaves her father's shop in company with mine adventurous cousin."
"You talk lightly of such vast sums, my lord," said Julia.