"Why! did you not—" he paused.
"Did he not what?" I asked.
"Oh, Lord! oh, dear!" roared out Deerhurst.
"Don't take on so, my lord," interposed Sophia's fat landlady, offering his lordship a glass of water.
Deerhurst accepted it with apparent gratitude, as though quite subdued.
"Could you have believed it, madam?" said he. "Did you believe that young creature was so depraved?"
"What do you mean by depraved?" I asked. "Why I can answer for it, Sophia has never given Colonel Berkeley the slightest encouragement, and beyond a mere yes or no she never opens her lips to him."
"Oh! don't tell me! don't tell me!" still blubbered his lordship, the big tears rolling down his cheeks.
"This is incredibly astonishing!" ejaculated Colonel Berkeley, in a very natural tone of surprise.
"What is incredibly astonishing?" I asked. "I am determined to understand this. In fact, I think I have guessed already. Lord Deerhurst, by the restoration of his annuity, will put two hundred pounds a year into his pocket on Sophia's first act of infidelity. You are his friend, and have done nothing but express your astonishment at his lordship's tears and apparent jealousy ever since he came blubbering into the room; therefore, since his arrival so quickly succeeded yours, I will lay my life you two desperate mauvais sujets came here together!"