"Nothing more likely! Ancram is good-looking and young; and Castalia—isn't."
"But where did she procure that money without her husband's knowledge?"
"Don't know, I'm sure."
"And her extravagance, and running him into debt as she has done—it seems to point to some mental aberration, does it not, Belinda?"
"Oh, fiddle-faddle, my lord! Why this, and how that! How do we know what truth there is in the whole story?"
"Belinda?"
"Oh, bless you, I'm too old a bird to be caught by any chaff the Ancrams can offer me."
"But, good heavens, Belinda, it is utterly incredible——"
"Nothing's incredible of an Ancram in the way of lying," returned the great lady of that family with much coolness. "This young jackanapes has got into a scrape down at What-do-ye-call-it. Things have gone wrong in the office—(I'll be bound he don't mind his business a bit)—he and his wife have got into debt between them. He don't like the place; and after bothering your life out for money, he comes off here without 'with your leave' or 'by your leave,' and asks to be sent abroad. That's my notion of the matter. And any way, if I were you, Valentine, I should take no sort of action, nor commit myself in any way, until I'd had Castalia's version of the story."
Lord Seely pressed his hand to his forehead, and writhed on his chair. "I wish to God that I could go to the place and speak with Castalia myself!" he cried. "There are things that cannot be written. But here I am a prisoner. It is a dreadful misfortune."