She fluttered and bowed, pressing her handkerchief against her lips. Could it be of Lord Baltimore?
“Madam, the report is—but Mr. Rich said he knew nothing of it—that in a storm of jealousy the woman Bishop who plays Lucy hocussed your wine, and that you had an escape of your life. Certainly her dismissal gives some colour to this.”
“Sir, I don’t know!” cries Diana eagerly.— “But sure it can’t be possible. I know her to be jealous of my success, but that’s a poor reason for murdering a woman, and she has no other.”
“Has she not?” he said, looking gravely down upon her. “You walk in the midst of perils and see them not. Mrs. Bishop has a reason far deeper than the one you name, and though I can’t tell, I imagine this is why Mr. Rich hath dismist her. Be open with me, Mrs. Fenton. I am your friend.”
“I know it—don’t I rejoice in it? But I know nothing more. I think—I believe the wine was tampered with, but am not certain and may do her a fearful injustice. Mr. Rich tells me she left on a better proposal. And I know of no reason whatever for her hate.”
There was a long hush, Bolton debating within himself whether he should or should not enlighten her ignorance. Would she walk the safer for the knowledge? At last, with a sigh, he broke the silence.
“Mrs. Beswick, I would you were done with the playhouse. You have won your laurels—I would you could rest on them. ’Tis no place for you. Do you love it very dearly?”
“I hate it!” she cries, with tears. “But what shall I do? ’Tis my living, and not only so but ’tis as natural to me to sing as to speak.— And further, her Grace and Mr. Gay talk of nothing but the new ‘Polly’ and my part in it, and how could I forsake them?”
“Will you permit a word of counsel from one who is your friend?”
“O most willingly and gratefully. I have none to counsel me in all the wide world. I have not a relation but my mother and she not in London now.”