“Yes, the great philanthropist! The man who takes the chair at the great annual meetings; the man who champions the cause of the widow and the orphans. Yes, that is the man. Everybody knows Spenser Churchill.” He stopped and smiled, as if he were reveling in some memory connected with the name. “That is the man. You know him?”
Percy Levant nodded.
“Every one knows him, my lord.”
“And believes in him! That’s an admirable joke! Well, he came to my assistance. My nephew, Cecil, had arranged to meet his ‘ladye love,’ this actress girl, or to put a letter to her underneath a stone or in a hollow tree—the usual thing, Mr.—Mr.——”
“Levant, my lord,” said Percy.
“Thank you, thank you! Yes, Mr. Levant. And my friend, Spenser Churchill, the great philanthropist, suggested that I should send Cecil out of the way, and that he, Spenser Churchill, should forge a letter from Cecil dissolving the engagement, and place it in the hollow tree, or whatever it was. I forget——” and he fell back, struggling for breath.
Doris sat motionless as a statue, with her hands clasped in her lap. Percy Levant bent over him and gave him some water.
“It—it was dangerous work, for Cecil had not left for Ireland, and—and if he had caught Spenser Churchill——” He stopped and smiled significantly. “But I’ll give Churchill his due. He risked the thing, and exchanged the real letter for the forgery, and—heigh, presto!—the engagement to this actress girl was done away with. The simple girl fell into the pit Spenser Churchill had dug for her, and”—he waved his thin, white hand—“there was an end of her, thank Heaven!”
“Yes,” said Percy Levant, grimly, his eyes still fixed on the white, wrinkled face; “and Lord Cecil, what of him?”
“Oh, he’ll get over it in time,” said the marquis. “I think he was hard hit. I remember when he came back from Ireland he was rather cut up. I think so. My memory is very bad. But he could not have felt it much, for he proposed to Grace.”