"You should rather hope that it is so."
"But we all know what military men are--never particular to a shade; and though excuses must be made for the temptations that surround them, and also for youth, I approve of the continental system, which generally excludes subaltern officers from society."
"Wife!" repeated Estelle; "O, it cannot be!"
"What is it to you--to us?" asked mamma, with a slight asperity of tone.
"Well, wife or not, she certainly wears a wedding-ring, and he has been more than once to visit her in that inn at Whitchurch. Of one visit our mutual friend Mr. Sharpus is cognisant. If you doubt this, ask him, and he will not contradict me."
"I have not said that I doubt you, Mr. Guilfoyle," said Estelle, with intense hauteur, while for a moment--but a moment only--her eyes flashed, her breast heaved, her hands were clenched, a burning colour suffused her face, and her feet were firmly planted on the carpet; yet she asked quietly, "Why do we hear this scandalous story at all? What is it to mamma--what to me?"
"More, perhaps, than you care to admit," said he, in a low voice, as the Countess rose to place Tiny in his mother-of-pearl basket.
Guilfoyle at Craigaderyn had acted as eavesdropper, and on more than one occasion had watched and followed, overseen and overheard us, and knew perfectly all about our secret engagement, her mother's views and opposition to any alliance save a noble or at least a moneyed one; and of all the stories he had the unblushing effrontery to tell, the present was perhaps the most daring. He had contrived, during the short visit he had paid to Walcot Park, under the wing of Mr. Sharpus, to let Estelle know by covert hints and remarks all he knew, and all he might yet disclose to her mother, to the young Earl of Naseby, to Lord Pottersleigh, Sir Madoc, and others; and feeling herself in his power, with all her lofty spirit the poor girl cowered before him, and he felt this instinctively, as he turned his green eyes exultingly upon her. But for a delicate, proud, and sensitive girl to have the secrets of her heart laid bare, and at the mercy of a man like this, was beyond all measure exasperating. And this strange narrative of his, coming after what she had seen, and all that Pompon with French exaggeration had related, crushed her completely for the time.
"I have another little item to add to our Hardinge romance," said he, with his strange, hard, dry, crackling laugh, and a smile of positive delight in his shifty green eyes, while he toyed with the long ears of Tiny the shock, which had resumed its place in Lady Naseby's lap. "You remember the locket with the initials 'H. H. G.' and the date 1st September which Miss Dora Lloyd mentioned when we were at Craigaderyn?"
"I have some recollection of it," replied Lady Naseby, languidly.