“Birds—flown,” cried Jenny, looking more and more as if she doubted her brother’s sanity; “what birds?”
“The fair Katherine, and that admirable Crichton, Claud.”
“Flown?” stammered Jenny, who looked now half stunned.
“Well, eloped,” he cried, savagely, “to Gretna Green, or a registry office. Who says that Northwood is a dull place, without events?”
“Kate Wilton eloped with her cousin Claud!”
“Yes, my dear,” said Pierce, striving hard to speak in a careless, indifferent tone, but failing dismally, for every word sounded as if torn from his breast, his quivering lips bespeaking the agony he felt.
There was silence for a few moments, and then Jenny exclaimed:
“Pierce, is this some cruel jest?”
“Do I look as if I were jesting?” he cried wildly, and springing up he cast aside the mask beneath which he had striven to hide the agony which racked him. “Jesting! when I am half mad with myself for my folly. Driveling pitiful idiot that I was, ready to believe in the first pretty face I see, and then, as I have said, I find how full of duplicity and folly a woman is.”
“Mind what you are saying, Pierce,” cried his sister, who seemed to be strangely moved; “don’t say words which will make you bitterly repent. Tell me again; I feel giddy and sick. I must be going to be taken ill, for I can’t have heard you aright, or there must be some mistake.”