“But who shot at you, and why?”
“That’s just it, Ned! We haven’t a notion who it was! It is the most famous affair, and only think! If I had not been sent down it would not have happened and we might never have known anything about it!”
“I think,” said Carlyon, “that you had better tell me this story from the start if I am to understand it.”
“Well, the start of it was Cousin Elinor’s part of the adventure. I was not here. Tell him how it all began, Cousin!”
“Yes, pray do!” said Carlyon, walking over to the fire and standing with his back to it. “I am happy, at all events, to discover that you are so far reconciled to your lot, ma’am, as to accept the—er—relationship that exists between us.”
She was obliged to smile. “Well, I had rather be called by almost any other name than Cheviot!” she said.
“I will bear it in mind. Now, what has been the matter here?”
Beginning to feel, quite irrationally, that she had been making a mountain out of a molehill, she described as briefly as she could her encounter with the young Frenchman. He heard her in attentive silence. Miss Beccles quietly removed her bonnet and pelisse and sat down in a chair with her hands placidly folded in her lap.
“You say he was young and dark and spoke with only a slight accent, ma’am?”
She agreed to it, adding that the Frenchman was of medium height and slim build and wore neat side whiskers.