"Indeed, ma'am," he said, "I had no idea----"
"That there was need for forgiveness?" said the lady, taking him up. "But indeed there was--eh, Phyllis? Mr. Burke," she added, with a sudden solemnity, "a few minutes after you left us at Soho Square Merriman rode up, and I assure you I nearly swooned, poor man! and hardly had strength to send for the surgeon. It needed three stitches--and he such a handsome man, too."
A horrid suspicion flashed through Desmond's mind. He remembered the scar on Mr. Merriman's brow, and that it was a scarcely healed wound when he met him with Clive on that unfortunate occasion in Billiter Street.
"Surely, ma'am, you don't mean--the highwayman?"
"Indeed I do. That is just it. Your highwayman was--Mr. Merriman. Fancy the hurt to his feelings, to say nothing of his good looks. Fie, fie, Mr. Burke!"
For a moment Desmond did not know whether embarrassment or amazement was uppermost with him. It was bad enough to have tripped Mr. Merriman up in the muddy street; but to have also dealt him a blow of which he would retain the mark to his dying day--"This is terrible!" he thought. Still there was an element of absurdity in the adventure that appealed to his sense of the ridiculous. But he felt the propriety of being apologetic, and was about to express his regret for his mistake when Mrs. Merriman interrupted him with a smile:
"But there, Mr. Burke, he bears you no grudge, I am sure. He is the essence of good temper. It was a mistake; he saw that when I explained; and when he had vented his spleen on the coachman next day he owned that it was a plucky deed in you to take charge of us, and indeed he said that you was a mighty good whip; although," she added laughing, "you was a trifle heavy in hand."
Desmond felt bound to make a full confession. He related the incident of his encounter with Merriman in London--how he had toppled him over in the mud--wondering how the ladies would take it. He was relieved when they received his story with a peal of laughter.
"Oh, mamma; and it was his new frock!" said Phyllis.
"La, so it was, just fresh from Mr. Small's in Wigmore Street--forty guineas and no less!"