While they were debating over the matter, Miss Kingscott came in quietly and went up to her room—nobody knowing what a strong witness she would prove on the side of the defendants in the case, if she so willed it: she now revolved in her mind whether she would or would not act in the matter. It was as yet unsettled, although she had sworn to revenge herself on Markworth. His last words to her had somewhat disarmed her.
Nemesis or non Nemesis: that was the question. The former triumphed. Mr Trump went back to London; and there he found that the case of Markworth versus Hartshorne, was already “brewing in the storm,” although it remained to be proved whether it was going to be “nipped in the bud,” as the American stump speaker told his audience after he had informed them that he “smelt a rat.” With which metaphor the chapter had better be concluded.
Barometer “Fair” again!
Volume Two—Chapter Seven.
The Campaigner “Carries the Fortress.”
Like a lamb to the slaughter, Herbert Pringle was led by the wily campaigner to his doom matrimonial.
When the veteran perceived that all her operations in re Tom and the gushing Carry must for a time be postponed, on account of the prostration of the principal combatant, she determined to prosecute the other enterprise to the best of her ability, and declared a sort of guerre à l’outrance against the young incumbent for the sake of her eldest daughter, the charming Laura.
Of course, she was far too strategic a campaigner to neglect the other affair altogether. She had written Tom an elegant little billet-doux after the sad contretemps of the pic-nic, telling how sorry she was for his accident, and how she had punished Mortimer, “that naughty, naughty boy,” and would remember the painful scene “to her grave:” she also caused Carry to scribble a postscript expressing her condolence, besides sending every day, like the Pringles, to enquire how he did. But she could do nothing further there at present, not at all events until Tom was able to come out again, when she had no doubt she would secure him, and oust that “odious little minx,” in spite of what she had seen at the pic-nic. She would, indeed, have said more about the matter, only that she would not for the world offend that “dear Mr Pringle,” who was “such a love of a preacher,” and “a perfect gentleman,” which she would persist in telling everyone, as if they disputed the point in the first place, and in the second, as if it was the most extraordinary thing in the world to meet with a member of the cloth who was a gentleman! The surprise on the campaigner’s part as to his being a good preacher was, however, perfectly natural: it is not every gentleman that wears a cassock who is either a fair orator, has a passable delivery, or preaches a good sermon.