Miss Grantham stayed where she was for a full minute, her breast heaving, and angry tears starting in her eyes. The-slam of the front-door recalled her to herself. She dashed a hand across her eyes, and rushed out of the room, straight upstairs to her bedchamber. Lady Bellingham was still seated there, but at sight of her niece’s ravaged countenance she almost jumped out of her chair, exclaiming: “Good God, my love, what is amiss?”
“That man!” choked Miss Grantham. “That devil!”
“Oh, heavens, you have quarrelled with Ravenscar again!” cried her ladyship. “Don’t tell me you have had him put in the cellar. I can’t bear it!”
“He shall never enter this house again!” stormed Miss Grantham. “He dared to think—he dared to think—Oh, I shall go mad!”
“I know you will, and it has been troubling me very much,” said her aunt. “I never knew you to behave so in all your life! What did he think?”
“He thought—oh, I cannot bring myself to speak of it! That is what he thinks me! I have never been so insulted! I wish I had called to Silas to fling him out of the house! If ever he dares to show his face here again that is what I shall do. I would like to boil him in oil! Nothing could be too bad for him, and if I could see my way to ruining him I would do it, and dance for joy!”
“But, Deb, what has he done?” wailed her aunt.
“He believes me to be the lowest kind of creature on this earth! He has insulted me in the worst way any—oh, go away, Aunt Lizzie, go away! And don’t let anyone come up to me, for I won’t see a soul!”
She looked so fierce that Lady Bellingham did not attempt to remonstrate with her, but tottered from the room, feeling: that her days were numbered. She heard the key turn in the lock behind her, and went downstairs to her boudoir, intending to recuperate her own strength by sipping hartshorn-and water, and lying down on the sofa, with her smelling-salts to hand.
She had barely settled herself comfortably, however, when Lucius Kennet walked into the room, saying cheerfully, “I hear that Deb has come home. Where is the darlin’?”