Lord Vincent paced up and down the wet and dirty stone floor, until at length the door opened and McRae, the officer who arrested him, entered.
"Ah, you have come at last. I wish to be informed why we have been left here all this time? Everyone else has been removed," exclaimed the viscount.
"My lord, those poor creatures who were brought here during the night were not arrested for any grave offense. Some were brought in only to keep them from perishing in the snowstorm, and others for drunkenness or disorder. The sitting police magistrate disposes of them. They will mostly be discharged. But you, my lord, are here upon a heavy charge, and you are to go before Sir Alexander McKetchum."
"Why, then, do you not conduct me there? Do you mean to keep me in this beastly place all day?"
"My lord, your examination is fixed for ten o'clock; it is only nine now," said McRae, passing on to the inner room, from which he presently appeared with Faustina.
Wretched did the poor creature look with her pale and tear-stained face, her reddened eyes and disheveled hair; and her rich and elegant white evening dress with its ample skirts and lace flounces bedraggled and bedabbled with all the filth of the station house.
"I have had a horrid night! I have been in worse than purgatory. I have not closed my eyes. I wish I was dead. See what you have brought me to, Malcolm! And—only look at my dress!" sobbed the woman.
"Your dress! That is just exactly what I am looking at. A pretty dress that to be seen in. What the demon do you think people will take you for?" sneered his lordship.
"I do not know! I do not care! poor trampled lily that I am!"
"Poor trampled fool! Why didn't you change that Merry Andrew costume for something plainer and decenter before you left the castle?"