"I'm glad," continued the Marchioness, "that you've taken so early an opportunity to explain what I could only consider as very singular conduct. For dear Isabelle's sake I'll consent to overlook what has occurred in the past, and if you can make suitable provision——"
Five minutes only remained before the time of early service. He thought his income large enough to fill the interval, and interrupted with:
"The woman I marry would have——," and then he told the Dowager all about it, in sterling and decimal currency.
"I think," said that lady, with a sigh of relief at the end of his narration, which, it may be remarked, took the best part of half an hour, "I think dear Isabelle's happiness should outweigh any social disparity, and that we may consider her as good as married."
"Yes," he replied, remembering that the church bells had stopped ringing some fifteen minutes before. "Yes, your Ladyship, I think we may."
A few minutes later Stanley found himself in one of the secluded stretches of the park, breathing in the fresh keen morning air with a new sense of delight, after the inherent stuffiness of the Dowager.
He trusted that Lady Isabelle would break the news to her mother at once, and get it over before he returned; but even then he had an unpleasant interview before him. As an accepted suitor the Marchioness would owe him an apology, which he could not avoid accepting. He hoped he could do the heart-broken and disappointed lover, whose feelings were tempered by the calm repression of high gentility. It was the rôle he had figured for himself, and he thought it excellent.
All his ideas, however, were centred on the problem of recovering the lost document; some means of entry to that secret tower there must be, and he must find it. He could not, of course, be certain that the paper contained Darcy's instructions; but it was admittedly important, and its loss had done him an injury which could only be atoned for by its recovery.