He choked back the oath that came to his lips.
"Meet him, and alone!" he muttered, the sweat breaking out on his forehead, his lips writhing.
"No, not alone; a boy, her cousin, is to accompany them."
"Ah!" he said, and a malignant smile curled his lips; "I can scotch that small snake; but him—Lord Leycester!" and his hands clinched.
He took a turn in the narrow path, and then came back to her.
"And afterward?" he asked. "What is to follow?"
She shook her head with contemptuous indifference, and leant against the wooden rail, looking down at the bubbling, seething water.
"I do not know. I imagine, as the boy accompanies her, that he will get a special license, and—marry her. But, perhaps"—and she glanced round at his white face with a malicious smile—"perhaps the boy is a mere blind, and Lord Leycester will dispose of him."
"And then?"
"Then," she said, slowly. "Well, Lord Leycester's character is tolerably well known; in all probability he will not find it necessary to make the girl—I beg your pardon! the young lady—the future Countess of Wyndward."