“If you mean, did Lord Vidal tell me so, no, sir, he did not. Lord Vidal is, I think, attached to his grace. I go by common report, a little, and by the very lively fear of her uncle evinced by my friend Miss Marling, His lordship merely gave me to understand that his father was uncannily omniscient, and had a habit of succeeding in all his objects.”
“I am relieved to hear that Lord Vidal has so much respect for his grace,” remarked the gentleman.
“Are you, sir? Well, having formed this opinion, I could not but feel that so far from desiring to meet me, his grace would very likely disinherit Lord Vidal if his lordship married me.”
“You draw an amiable portrait, Miss Challoner, but I can assure you that whatever his grace’s feelings might be he would never follow so distressingly crude a course.”
“Would he not, sir? I did not know, but I am very sure he would not countenance his son’s marriage to a nobody. To continue: Lord Vidal, discovering that I was once at school with his cousin, Miss Marling, brought me to Paris, and consigned me to her care until such time as he could find an English divine to marry me. Miss Marling was secretly betrothed to a certain Mr. Comyn, but their betrothal was broken off — irrevocably, as I thought — and Mr. Comyn, being a gentleman of great chivalry, offered his hand to me, to enable me to escape from Lord Vidal. Though I blush to confess it, sir, such was my desperate need, that I consented to elope with Mr. Comyn to Dijon where Lord Vidal had found an English divine. Unfortunately, Mr. Comyn thought it incumbent on him to leave a note for his lordship, apprising him of our intention to wed. The result was, sir, that Lord Vidal, accompanied by Miss Marling, overtook us at Dijon before the knot was tied. There was a painful scene. Mr. Comyn, desiring to protect me from his lordship’s — coercion — announced that we were man and wife. Lord Vidal, with the object of making me a widow, tried to choke the life out of Mr. Comyn. In which I think he would probably have succeeded,” she added, “had there not been a jug of water at hand. I threw it over them both, and my lord let Mr. Comyn go.”
“A jug of water!” he repeated. His shoulders shook slightly. “But continue, Miss Challoner!”
“After that,” she said matter-of-factly, “they fought with their swords.”
“How very enlivening! Where did they fight with — er — their swords?”
“In the private parlour. Juliana had hysterics.”
“It is quite unnecessary to tell me that,” he assured her. “What I should like to know is what was done with Mr. Comyn’s body?”