"Come, Charlotte, let us have no more of all this; we had better get on well together. Have any of the servants been into the room to-night since I left you?"
The lady looked up with a sort of bewildered and absent air, saying,
"No, I think not--let me see. No, no. I have been sitting writing and sleeping. I fell asleep for an hour, and then I wrote till you came back. No one has been in, I am sure."
"While you were asleep they might," said Moreton, thoughtfully.
"No, no," she answered, "I should have heard them instantly; I wake in a moment, you know, with the least sound. Nobody has been in the room I will swear."
"Then you can swear, too, that I never left it," answered Moreton, laughing, "I mean that I have been here or hereabouts all night, in case it should be needed."
The lady did not seem at all shocked at the proposal, for she had no great opinion of the sanctity of oaths, and when the servant returned with all that Captain Moreton had demanded, he asked her sharply,
"Where were you, Kitty, when I rang about an hour ago?"
"Lord, Sir," replied the woman, "I had only run across to ask why they had not sent my beer."
"Well, I wish you would take some other time for going on such errands," replied Captain Moreton, and there the subject dropped.