“The countess! Why, you don’t mean—”
“Yes, sir; she was married to the Earl of Winterleyton a year ago, sir. His lordship’s town house is a hundred and ten Queen Square, and Hallybury, Bassenthwaite, sir.”
“Oh!” said Humphrey, calmly; “I have been to the West Indies, and had not heard the news.”
He nodded good-humouredly to the old butler, and went off across the square.
“Now, it’s my belief,” said the old butler, “that he’s another on ’em as her young ladyship was always a-leading on!”
“Thank Heaven!” said Humphrey, with a sigh of relief; and he went and behaved like an Englishman, for he walked straight to his club, ordered his dinner, and for the first time for months thoroughly enjoyed it; while as he sat afterwards over the remains of his bottle of fine old Carbonell port—a wine that was likely to restore some of the lost blood to his veins—he filled his glass slowly, thought of his next expedition, and that it with its earnest work would be the best remedy for a mind diseased, and made up his mind that if he could persuade him to leave his newly-made wife he would have Dinny for one of his men.
“And old Bart, too, if he will serve,” he said half aloud. Then two or three times over, as a pretty, powdered-and-painted image, all silk and gewgaws and flowers, filled his imagination, “What a release! Thank Heaven!”
At last there was but one glass left in the bottle, and raising the handled basket in which it reclined, he carefully poured it out, and held it up, seeming to see in the candle-lit, ruby rays a torrid land, a sun-browned face, and two dark, imploring eyes gazing into his till they grew dewy, and all around him seemed to be blurred and dim. He was almost alone in the great club-room, for the various diners had risen and gone, and for the time being the long, gloomy place seemed to be the old prison chamber, with its stone altar and great carven idol gazing stolidly down upon him as he said softly:
“Mary Dell! True woman! I shall never love again!”
He drained the glass to the memory of Commodore Junk, and, stubborn Englishman to the last, he kept his word.