‘Now, look here Jack,’ said the woman, ‘you have not brought me here at this time of night to upbraid me for the inevitable past, surely? You must know that I run a fearful risk in coming here. You must know also that only one object on earth would have brought me. Be merciful as you are great, and don’t keep me fooling my time away in order to listen to your platitudes. Isn’t the subject of our former relations with each other rather stale?’
‘It will never be stale to me, Nora,’ replied Mr Portland; ‘and the melancholy fact that you preferred Ilfracombe to myself is not likely to make me forget it.’
‘Ilfracombe!’ thought Nell, from her post of observation, ‘can this really be the countess? Oh, how grossly she must be deceiving him. Prefer Ilfracombe to him! Why, of course it must be she. I will hear every word they say now, if I die for it.’
‘That is nonsense,’ resumed Nora, ‘you never really cared for me, Jack; and if you did, the sentiment has died long ago. Don’t let us twaddle, pray, but come to business.’
‘I thought the twaddle (as you call it) was part of our business, but I am willing to let it drop. What has your ladyship to say next?’
‘I want to ask you something which I have been afraid to mention with so many eavesdroppers as we have round us at the Hall. You knew that chère amie of Ilfracombe’s—Miss Llewellyn—of course.’
‘I did. Everyone who knew him knew her. What of it? Are you getting up a little jealousy of the dead for future use?’
‘Don’t talk nonsense. Am I the sort of woman to go raving mad on account of my husband’s former peccadilloes? But what became of her?’
At this juncture Nell became keenly attentive. She thrust her head as far as she dared out of the window, and did not lose a single word.
‘By Jove! no,’ laughed Portland, ‘I cannot imagine your ladyship being jealous of anything, or anyone who had not the power to take your beloved coronet from you. But surely you know what became of the poor girl? She is dead. She drowned herself when Ilfracombe sent home word that he was about to marry you, and told old Sterndale to give her “the genteel kick out.”’