“Yes, and so many of them!” said Mrs. Morville, with a bright smile.
The doctor then went away, and Lord Ulverston, looking round the Hall, suddenly demanded: “But where’s Ger? Not still abed, is he?”
“No, my lord,” said Turvey. “His lordship is not, so far as I am aware, within the Castle.”
“What’s that?” said Ulverston. “He was feeling his wound — said he would rest!”
Miss Morville opened her eyes. “He went to Evesleigh,” she said.
“Evesleigh! Good God, why?”
The Dowager, who had been regaling the unwilling Mr. Morville with a long, and apparently pointless, anecdote about a set of persons whom he had neither met nor wished to meet, broke off to explain that if her stepson had gone to Evesleigh, it was to visit his cousin.
“I know that, ma’am!” said the Viscount impatiently. “How came you to let him go, Miss Morville? What can have possessed him to undertake the journey? He will be quite knocked up! Who accompanied him? That young groom of his?”
“No. I think — ” Miss Morville stopped. “I don’t know!” she ended uncommunicatively.
He looked down at her rather narrowly. “Know why he went, ma’am?”