‘In what sense, pray?’ asked Atlee mildly.
‘Disavowing all: stating the story had no foundation: that there was no attack—no resistance—no member of the viceregal household present at any time.’
‘That would be going too far; for then we should next have to deny Walpole’s broken arm and his long confinement to house.’
‘You may serve coffee in a quarter of an hour, Marcom,’ said she, dismissing the butler; and then, as he left the room—‘And you tell me seriously there was a broken arm in this case?’
‘I can hide nothing from you, though I have taken an oath to silence,’ said he, with an energy that seemed to defy repression. ‘I will tell you everything, though it’s little short of a perjury, only premising this much, that I know nothing from Walpole himself.’
With this much of preface, he went on to describe Walpole’s visit to Kilgobbin as one of those adventurous exploits which young Englishmen fancy they have a sort of right to perform in the less civilised country. ‘He imagined, I have no doubt,’ said he, ‘that he was studying the condition of Ireland, and investigating the land question, when he carried on a fierce flirtation with a pretty Irish girl.’
‘And there was a flirtation?’
‘Yes, but nothing more. Nothing really serious at any time. So far he behaved frankly and well, for even at the outset of the affair he owned to—a what shall I call it?—an entanglement was, I believe, his own word—an entanglement in England—’
‘Did he not state more of this entanglement, with whom it was, or how, or where?’
‘I should think not. At all events, they who told me knew nothing of these details. They only knew, as he said, that he was in a certain sense tied up, and that till Fate unbound him he was a prisoner.’