He thought she would have repudiated the proposal as a fresh insult, but, to his surprise, she answered firmly,—
‘I will come, if these are your only conditions, Jack, I agree to them. It is a risqué thing to do, but I will do it. I trust to your honour too implicitly to be afraid of your permitting any scandal to accrue from the act. And if you fulfil your promise, Ilfracombe shall stay on at Usk Hall as long as you do. Is the bargain sealed?’
‘It is,’ replied Mr Portland, with the utmost surprise.
He had not entertained the faintest idea that Nora would agree to visit him at Panty-cuckoo Farm. Was it possible she still retained an inkling of affection for him, and had her constrained manner since her marriage been a blind for her real feelings? Men are so conceited where the beau sexe is concerned, that Jack Portland, bloated and disfigured as he was by excess and dissipation, was yet quite ready to believe that the Countess of Ilfracombe had been unable to resist the feelings raised in her breast by meeting him again. He had made the proposal that she should fetch her letters herself, because he thought she would guess from that, that he had no intention of giving them up to her; but when she consented to do so, he determined to make her secret visit to him one more terror by which to force her to influence her husband as he should direct. Now, he hardly knew what he should do. She was coming, that was the extraordinary part of it. Without any pressing or entreaty, the Countess of Ilfracombe was actually coming over to his room at night, to secure her packet of letters. Well, it was the very ‘rummiest go’ he had ever heard of in his life before.
‘You must be very careful that you are not seen to leave the Hall,’ he said to her.
Now that she had agreed to come, he began to wish he had never said anything about it. What if his dear friend Ilfracombe got wind of the matter? Would not that render his wife’s efforts on Mr Portland’s behalf futile ever afterwards? The earl was very suave and easily led; but Jack Portland knew him too well to suppose he would ever forgive an offence against his honour. If Nora’s good name were compromised by his nearest and dearest friend, that friend would have to go, if the parting broke his heart. Added to which Mr Portland had no idea of getting into even an imaginary scrape for Lady Ilfracombe; he did not like her well enough. He regarded her only as a convenient tool in his hands which he had no intention of letting go.
‘Perhaps, after all,’ he said cautiously, ‘you had better not risk it. It would be a risk, you know, and it would be awkward to have to give Ilfracombe an explanation of the affair, wouldn’t it?’
‘I shall be careful to run no risk,’ was her reply.
‘But suppose some of the farm people should see you, what excuse could you make for being there?’
‘I should make no excuse at all. I have as much right as other people, I suppose, to take a moonlight ramble. What time shall I meet you? It must not be too late, as I must go upstairs when the other ladies do.’