“Whoever he is he has earned my undying gratitude!” declared Judith, still shaken from the fright she had had. “How could you go out to fight without a word to me? Oh, how I hate the practice of duelling! How I despise all you men for thinking it a way to settle a quarrel!”
“Stuff!” said Peregrine, disengaging himself from her clasp. “As for you, John, be off to your work! You’ve meddled enough for one day! If I had dreamed the fellow was not to be trusted—but I might have known! I had no business to be taken in by him. My father warned us against him, and you may depend upon it the son is no better.”
“Do you speak of my cousin? Is it possible that it was he who saved you from this terrible affair?”
“Lord, Ju, don’t talk in that silly way! You don’t understand these things. Ay, it was our cousin; I am persuaded it was he. I am off to settle with him on the instant.”
She detained him. “You need not; I expect him here at any minute. He is to take Mrs. Scattergood and me to Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition. Indeed, I do not know what should be keeping him, for he said he would be here quite by eleven, and you see it is past eleven now.”
“That’s cool, upon my word!” exclaimed Peregrine. “He has the impudence to get me had up before a beak, and takes my sister out on the top of it! A very pretty fellow is this Bernard Taverner!”
“Do I hear my name?” The voice, a quiet one, came from the doorway behind Peregrine. “Ah, Peregrine! Thank God!”
Peregrine swung round to confront his cousin. “Ay, you are surprised to see me, are you not?”
“I am glad,” Mr. Taverner replied steadily. “You imposed silence upon me; it has been hard for me to stand by. But I guessed I must hear certain tidings of you by this time. You have taken no hurt?”
“Silence!” ejaculated Peregrine. “Will you tell me you have kept silence over this?”