“What, I ask myself,” she said dramatically, “has become of that tiresome girl? Into what company may she have fallen? I see that you, Sir Richard, are a person of sensibility. Conceive of my feelings! What—I say, what if my unfortunate niece should have fallen into the hands of some Man? ’
“What indeed!” said Sir Richard.
“She must marry him. When I think of the care, the hopes, the maternal fondness I have lavished—but it is ever so! There is no gratitude in the world to-day.”
Upon this gloomy reflection, she ordered her chaise to be got ready to bear her instantly to Chippenham. She would have remained at Queen Charlton for the night, she explained, only that she suspected the sheets.
Sir Richard, having seen her off, walked down the street, to cool his heated brow, and to consider the intricacies of his position.
It was while he was absent that Miss Creed and the Honourable Beverley Brandon, approaching the George from widely divergent angles, but with identical circumspection, came face to face in the entrance-parlour.
They eyed one another. A few moments’ conversation with the tapster had put Beverley in possession of information which he found sufficiently intriguing to make him run the risk of perhaps encountering Captain Trimble in entering the inn, and prosecuting further enquiries about Sir Richard Wyndham. Sir Richard, the tapster had told him, was putting up at the George with his nephew.
Now, Sir Richard’s nephew, as Beverley knew well, was a lusty young gentleman not yet breeched. He did not mention this circumstance in the tapster, but on hearing that the mysterious nephew in question was a youth in his teens, he pricked up his ears, and penetrated from the tap room into the main parlour of the inn.
Here Pen, entering the George cautiously from the stableyard, came plump upon him. Never having seen his face, she did not at once recognize him, but when, after an intent stare, he moved towards her, saying with a slight stammer: “How d-do you do? I think you m-must be Wyndham’s n-nephew?” she had no doubt of his identity.
She was no fool, and she realized at once that anyone well-acquainted with Sir Richard must be aware that she was not his nephew. She replied guardedly: “Well, I call him my uncle, because he is so much older than I am, but in point of fact we are cousins only. Third cousins,” she added, making the relationship as remote as she could.