"Nonsense, my good fellow," interrupted the baronet sharply. "That is no excuse for a woman. A man may do what he chooses; but a woman—a wife—"
"Come, come—no moralizing," said Chichester. "It is all your own fault. Not one woman out of fifty would go wrong, if the husband behaved properly. But now that I have told you the secret, think what use you can make of it."
"I cannot see how the circumstance can serve me, without farther proof," remarked the baronet. "Ah! Lady Cecilia—what duplicity! what deceit!"
"Why not search her drawers—her boxes?" said Chichester. "She is absent; no one can interrupt you; and perhaps you may find a letter—"
"Excellent thought!" cried Sir Rupert; and, seizing a candle, he hurried from the room.
Twenty minutes elapsed, during which Mr. Chichester sate drinking his wine as comfortably as if he had done a good action, instead of revealing so fearful a secret to his friend.
At length Sir Rupert Harborough returned to the dining-room.
He was very pale; and there was something ghastly in his countenance, and sinister in the expression of his eyes.
"Well—any news?" inquired Chichester.
"No proof—not a note, not a letter," answered the baronet. "But I have found something," he added, with an hysterical kind of laugh, "that will answer my purpose for the moment better still."