Saltinville boasted of about a dozen versions of the scandal, one of the most popular being that which was picked up at Miss Clode’s. In this version Cora Dean had no part, but Claire Denville had.
For a whole week these various accounts were bandied about and garbled and told, till the result of the mixture was very singular, and it would have puzzled an expert to work out the simple truth. Then something fresh sprang up, and the elopement or abduction—nobody at last knew which, or who were the principals—was forgotten, especially as Rockley was seen about as usual, and the proprietor of the chaise and the killed horse was fully recompensed by the Major. How he obtained the money, he and Josiah Barclay best knew.
But Stuart Denville was disappointed with respect to his daughter’s prospects. It was sheer pleasure to her to be able to stay quietly at home; but her father bitterly regretted the absence of invitation cards, while he, for one, remained strangely in ignorance that it was his own child who was nearly carried off that night.
Volume Two—Chapter Thirty.
A Terrible Resurrection.
“A gentleman to see you, ma’am.”
“To see me, Isaac?” said Claire, starting in terror, and with a strange foreboding of ill. “Who is it? Did he give his name?”
“No, miss; he would not give any name. Said it was on important business. He asked for Miss May first.”