“Was it, by God!” said Vidal, and promptly went off home.
The letter, addressed in Mr. Comyn’s neat handwriting, was lying on the table in the wide hall. Vidal broke the seal, and ran his eye down the single sheet.
“ My lord,” wrote Mr. Comyn, “ I have to inform your lordship that my betrothal to Miss Juliana Marling being at an end, I have made bold to offer my hand in marriage to the lady lately travelling under your lordship’s protection. I think it only proper to apprise your lordship of this step, since your lordship was good enough to take me into your confidence. Miss Challoner having been so obliging as to accept of my offer, we are leaving Paris immediately. Miss Challoner, while sensible of the honour your lordship does her in proposing for her hand, is highly averse from a marriage which she deems unsuitable, and from the outset doomed to unhappiness. Since I apprehend that this aversion is known to your lordship, it will be unnecessary (I am assured) to request your lordship to relinquish the pretensions which have become a menace to Miss Challoner’s peace of mind.
“I beg to remain, my lord, in all else,
“Your lordship’s obedient servant to command,
“Frederick Comyn. ”
His lordship swore softly and long, to the admiration of a lackey, who stood reverently listening to his fluency. Then he proceeded to set his household by the ears, and the word flew round inside of ten minutes that the Devil’s Cub was in a rare taking, and there would be bloodshed before nightfall. From the orders that followed one another like lightning off his lordship’s tongue, it was apparent that he was going on a sudden swift journey, and when Fletcher was bidden send to the gates of Paris to find whether an Englishman accompanied by a lady had passed out of any one of them that morning, none of the household had any doubt at all of the nature of his lordship’s journey.
“Damn my blood if I’ve ever seen the Cub so wild!” remarked his lordship’s particular groom. “Ay, and I’ve known him a year or two.”
“I’ve seen him wilder nor this,” mused a footman, “but not for a female. And meself I’d say the Mantoni had more to her than this one, or that piece we had with us a couple of years back — what was her name, Horace? The beauty that threw a coffee-pot at the Cub in one of her tantrums.”
“I’m not Horace to you, my lad,” said Mr. Timms loftily. “And me knowing what I do, which is natural in his lordship’s own gentleman, I’d advise you not to draw odious comparisons between Miss Challoner and those other trollops.”