They had not heard Dr. Shrapnel quietly opening the hall door and hanging up his hat. He looked in.
“Beauchamp!” he exclaimed.
“Come, doctor,” said Beauchamp, and loosened his clasp of Jenny considerately.
She disengaged herself.
“Beauchamp! now I die a glad man.”
“Witness, doctor, she’s mine by her own confession.”
“Uncle!” Jenny gasped. “Oh! Captain Beauchamp, what an error! what delusion!... Forget it. I will. Here are more misunderstandings! You shall be excused. But be...”
“Be you the blessedest woman alive on this earth, my Jenny!” shouted Dr. Shrapnel. “You have the choice man on all the earth for husband, sweetheart! Ay, of all the earth! I go with a message for my old friend Harry Denham, to quicken him in the grave; for the husband of his girl is Nevil Beauchamp! The one thing I dared not dream of thousands is established. Sunlight, my Jenny!”
Beauchamp kissed her hand.
She slipped away to her chamber, grovelling to find her diminished self somewhere in the mid-thunder of her amazement, as though it were to discover a pin on the floor by the flash of lightning. Where was she!