“Tell us where she is!” came high staccato last from Sir Wyatt’s exhausted lips.
“My Lords and Gentlemen!” answers Her Ladyship, standing close to the door enveloped from top to toe in a sheet over her night-rail. “Would to God I could!”
There was a ring of heartfelt truth in the reply, and its utterance was succeeded by a second’s surprised pause.
The young bucks regarded each other with shrugs, pursed mouths, and interrogation points bristling in their eyes.
Mr. Chalmers, recovered of his surprise sooner than the others, says:
“Do you mean to say, Sir Robin, that the whereabouts of the lady with whose name the prints and the coffee-houses are ringing; for whose sake you came near to fighting Sir Percy only last night, and did fight him in Lark Lane o’ Thursday last, ain’t known to you?”
“Is she in London?” pipes the Beau, pinching the little black till he squeaks again.
“That I can not tell,” responds Her Ladyship. “I do know she’s not in Kent; and she’s not at Kennaston Castle. ’Slife! Sirs,” adds she, “I pray your consideration. Guess what you will; this matter of Lady Peggy sticks me closer than you dream, and I’d give my life to know her safe at home with her mother.”
Silence ensues; the disappointed fifteen get them back to the Beau’s bedside to talk over this latest development as to the mysterious Lady Peggy.
