"Your uncle," he said, "has for months past been plotting and scheming against you, your happiness, your life. He tried in the first place, by every means in his power, to prevent your marriage with Miss Aylwin. On the Sunday last June when she was down here they walked in the wood together, and saw——"
"I know all about that," said Harry.
"I doubt it. Do you know, for instance, that Mr. Francis tried to persuade Miss Aylwin to overlook the fact that she had seen you walking with a dairymaid? Do you know that he never suggested to her that the supposed 'you' might be Jim, that he told her that all 'your previous little foolishness'—the exact phrase—had been quite innocent? I think you did not know that."
The whole scene still seemed utterly unreal to Harry; he could not believe that it was going on. He turned to his uncle.
"Well?" he said.
"Ah, I am on my trial then!" said Mr. Francis, very evilly. "Harry, my dear boy, it is only because this fellow has been your friend that I stop and listen to these monstrous insinuations. I am asked, I believe, what I have to say to this. Well, what has been said is literally true. I mistook the groom for you. So did Miss Aylwin. We both made a mistake. As for 'previous little foolishnesses,' that of course is a pure invention on the part of some imaginative person."
"Miss Aylwin told Lady Oxted; Lady Oxted told me," said Geoffrey, as quietly as if he was giving a reference to some small point of business.
Mr. Francis just shrugged his shoulders.
"I remember last winter," he said, "that we used to play a very diverting game called Russian scandal."
"The next move you know, Harry," continued Geoffrey, still taking the smallest notice of Mr. Francis. "He wrote to tell you that Miss Aylwin was already engaged."