“It is not fear that shakes me,” she replied. “It is disgust. The disgust that some feel at reptiles I feel at you, my Lord Lovat.”
She quickly turned and left the room. When he followed she had her foot on the stairs. He said aloud, “You will repent, madam. You will repent.”
“That is my own affair.”
“True, madam, most true. I charge you to remember that you have yourself said that it is your own affair if you find you have cause to repent.”
Lady Carse stood on the stairs till her visitor had closed the house door behind him, struggled up to her chamber, and fainted on the threshold.
“This journey will never do, madam,” said Bessie, as her mistress revived.
“It is the very thing for me,” protested the lady. “In twelve hours more we shall have left this town and my enemies behind us; and then I shall be happy.”
Bessie sighed. Her mistress often talked of being happy; but nobody had ever yet seen her so.
“This fainting is nothing,” said Lady Carse, rising from the bed. “It is only that my soul sickens when Lord Lovat comes near; and the visitor below was Lord Lovat.”
“Mercy on us!” exclaimed Bessie. “What next?”