"Don't mention it," said Edward.
"If you are, I don't wonder so much at what happened in London. Good night. Sorry to have disturbed you."
"Don't you think," said Edward, "that you might as well tell me why you did disturb me?"
"I thought you were the piano-tuner," she said; "you knew that perfectly well. And I don't want piano-tuners hanging round Jevington. I'm sorry I offered the money. I ought to have seen."
"Not at all," said Mr. Basingstoke, "and, since my presence here annoys you, know that by this time to-morrow I shall be far away."
"There's one thing more," said Miss Davenant. But Mr. Basingstoke was never to know what that one thing was, for at the instant a wild shriek rang through the quiet night, there was a scuffle outside, hoarse voices in anger and pain, the door burst open, and Miss Davenant's groom staggered in.
"Beg pardon, ma'am"—he still remembered his station, and it was thus he affirmed it—"beg pardon, ma'am, but this 'ere dawg—"
It was too true. Charles, perhaps conscious of his master's presence in the parlor, had slipped his collar, scratched a hole under the stable door, and, finding the groom and the landlord in the passage, barring his entrance, had bitten the groom's trousers leg. It hung, gaping, from knee to ankle—with Charles still attached. Charles's master choked the dog off, but confidential conversation was at an end, even when a sovereign had slipped from his hand to the groom's.
"Seems the young lady's missing," said the host, when the dog-cart had rattled up the street.