“It is quite impossible that she should do so. I see I shall have to entrust the whole story to your ears,” said the Duke.
He then proceeded, somewhat to his own astonishment and considerably more to Mrs. Appleby’s, to weave about the unconscious persons of Belinda and Mr. Thomas Mamble a lurid and fantastic story in which defaulting trustees, cruel stepfathers, and hideous persecution figured prominently, if somewhat obscurely. He cast himself for the role of secret envoy, but being quite unable to think of any reason for an envoy’s presence in Baldock, took refuge in an air of mystery which so much bewildered Mrs. Appleby that she ended by weakly saying that Belinda might have a small bed-chamber at the back of the house for one night only, and that not because she believed one word of Mr. Rufford’s story, but because she was not, she hoped, an unmerciful woman.
The Duke, feeling worn-out by the exercise of so much imagination, mopped his damp brow as soon as Mrs. Appleby had sailed away to prepare the small back bed-chamber, and nerved himself to enter his parlour He found that Belinda, having shed her bonnet and pelisse, had made herself comfortable in an easy chair by the fire, and was eating one of the few apples Tom had left in the basket on the side-table. She greeted her host with her angelic smile, and said: “How disagreeable she is! Will she let me stay here, sir?”
“Yes, for tonight she will,” he replied. “But I do not understand! Why have you come? What is it you wish me to do for you?”
She looked at him in surprise and faint reproach. “But you said you wished you might take me with you!” she reminded him.
The Duke, who clearly saw an abyss yawning at his feet, said with a great deal of uneasiness in his voice: “Did I? Yes, well, but—but I cannot take you with me!”
“Can’t you?” said Belinda wistfully. “Then what must I do, please, sir?”
“My dear girl, how can I possibly advise you?” protested Gilly. “I do not even know why you have left your uncle!”
“Oh, he is not my uncle!” said Belinda blithely.
“Not your uncle? He is your guardian though, is he not?”