He said nothing, and she too remained silent for several minutes. At last, having turned it over in his mind, he said, “You had better tell me the whole. That I have only heard half I have no doubt at all! Where does Charles Rivenhall stand in all this?”
She folded her hands on Tina’s back. “Alas! I have quarreled so dreadfully with Charles that I am obliged to seek refuge at Lacy Manor!” she said mournfully.
“And have doubtless left a note behind you to inform him of this!”
“Of course!”
“I foresee a happy meeting!” he commented bitterly.
“That,” she acknowledged, “was the difficulty! But I think I can overcome it. I promise you, Charlbury, you shall come out of this with a whole skin — well, no, perhaps not quite that, but very nearly!”
“You do not know how much you relieve my mind! I daresay I may not be a match for Rivenhall, either with pistols or with my fists, but give me the credit for not being quite so great a poltroon as to fear a meeting with him!”
“I do,” she assured him. “But it can serve no good purpose for Charles to mill you down — have I that correctly?”
“Quite correctly!”
“ — or to put a bullet through you,” she ended, her serenity unshaken.