‘“By marriage, I suppose I must be,” acknowledged Elinor. “I do not dislike you to call me so, at all events—Cousin Nicholas.”
“Oh, no! I wish you will not call me Nicholas!” he protested. “No one ever does, except John sometimes, when he reads me one of his lectures! Ned never does so. Why, how you have changed everything here already! I declare, this is first-rate!”
She invited him to sit down by the fire. He declined partaking of any refreshment but was anxious to know if there were any way in which he could be of use to her. “For you must know that I am quite at leisure,” he told her. “And Ned said I could make myself useful.”
She did not feel that his assistance in sorting linen would be of much practical help, but it occurred to her that he might be able to throw light on the identity at least of her midnight visitor. She described the encounter to him, therefore. He listened with much interest and at the end said that his cousin Eustace had been a very loose screw and that any friends of his were likely to prove ugly customers. But he was less concerned with the Frenchman’s name than with the manner of his entry.
“Too smoky by half, Cousin!” he said. “A fellow don’t go creeping into a man’s house at midnight if he’s up to any good. Depend upon it, Eustace was concerned in some devilry or other!”
“I hope you may be wrong!” she said. “For if you are not I dare not think of the odd persons who may seek to gain admittance here in the expectation of finding him!”
“Very true. Are you quite sure there was no door left open?”
“I could not find one. It is the strangest thing! I own I cannot be at my ease over it.”
“I’ll tell you what it is, Cousin Elinor!” said Nicky, his eyes sparkling. “I should not be at all surprised if there were a secret way into the house we do not know of!”
She regarded him in considerable dismay. “No, pray do not put such uncomfortable notions into my head!” she begged.