“Perhaps I might also exact a recompense for keeping secret the good understanding which exists between your lordship and ‘dearest Laura,’ and which you so unguardedly betrayed?” observed Mrs. Mortimer, in a tone of bitter sarcasm, and with a malignant glance darted from her snake-like eyes at her daughter.
“Silence, woman!” ejaculated the Marquis, speaking with the emphasis of authority: then, the writing materials being now placed before him, he sate down and wrote a cheque, which he tossed across the table to Mrs. Mortimer, saying, “I am sorry that I have not enough money about my person to satisfy your demands. I am therefore compelled to give you a draft upon my London bankers; and you will perceive that it is for six times as much as I at first offered you,” he added, dwelling on the words which the old woman had herself used to indicate the amount of her expectations.
“Yes—my lord: I see that it is for six hundred pounds,” she observed, coolly and quietly, as she folded up the cheque and secured it about her person. “And now I will tell you what I know concerning your daughter; and I take heaven to witness that I will not mislead you.”
“If you do, my good woman,” interrupted the Marquis, “you will find payment of the cheque stopped at the bank. Go on; and delay not—for my time is precious.”
“In a word, my lord,” said Mrs. Mortimer, the contemptuous manner in which she was treated by the haughty peer being fully counterbalanced by the handsome bonus that had just fallen into her hand,—“Lord William Trevelyan, whom you doubtless know well by name, if not personally, is deeply enamoured of your daughter; and he employed me to take a letter to her. I acquitted myself of the task: but Miss Agnes is a perfect dragon of virtue—and I could make little impression upon her.”
“God be thanked!” ejaculated the Marquis, fervently.
“Well—although Lord William’s passion is honourable enough, I have no doubt, yet Miss Agnes——”
“And is it Lord William who has taken her away?” demanded the Marquis, unable to restrain his impatience or any longer endure the tortures of suspense.
“No, my lord—it was her mother!” said Mrs. Mortimer, watching through profound curiosity the effect which this announcement would produce upon the nobleman.
“Ah! then my worst apprehensions are confirmed!” he exclaimed, in a tone of poignant anguish.