Sir Maxwell Danby, who had been watching his opportunity, now came forward:
"If you have quite done with yonder Niobe, will you permit me to escort you to your chair? No? You are walking? That is better; I shall have more of your company. Let me place your hood over your head—so! What a wealth of loveliness it hides!"
Griselda turned away impatiently; but as Lady Betty was in advance with Lord Basingstoke, she was obliged to follow them.
Sir Maxwell made the best of his opportunity, and held Griselda's hand as it rested on his arm, though she drew back from such familiarity.
"That old gentlewoman," he said, "was reading you a lecture on the sins of the world and its frivolities. I could see it; I have been watching you from afar."
"I am sorry, sir, you had no better subject of contemplation," was the reply.
It was but a step to North Parade; and, just as they reached it, Leslie Travers turned the corner from South Parade. It gave him a thrill of disgust to see Griselda on the arm of a man who he knew was no fit companion for any pure-minded woman, and a pang of jealousy shot through him, and got the better of his discretion.
"If you had waited, Miss Mainwaring, I should have returned at the time I appointed, and I could have told you of what I had seen."
"You did find her? You know, then, her story was true?"
"Yes, but the half had not been told; but more of this hereafter."