“How can I tell?” he said; “the man may or may not be inclined to betray his friend. In any case it will be very difficult for us to get at him.”
“Not for you, Richard,” murmured Eleanor, persuasively.
“Not for me,” echoed the young man. “Syren, mermaiden, witch of the sea, avaunt! It was you and the blue bonnet that settled for the shipbroker and his clerks. Have you the blue bonnet still, Nell; or have you any other influence in the millinery line that you can bring to bear upon this traveller in mustard?”
“But if he should remember me?”
“That’s scarcely likely. His face was impressed upon your mind by the awful circumstance that followed your meeting with him. You have changed very much since you were fifteen years of age, Mrs. Monckton. You were a feminine hobbledehoy then. Now you are—never mind what. A superb Nemesis in crinoline, bent on deeds of darkness and horror. No, I do not see any reason to fear this man’s recognition of you.”
The expression of Launcelot Darrell’s face had subsided into a settled gloom when he reappeared in the drawing-room with Mr. Monckton.
The lawyer seated himself at a reading-table, and began to open the evening papers, which were sent from Windsor to Tolldale. Launcelot strolled over to Laura Mason, and, sitting down beside her, amused himself by pulling the silky ears of the Skye terrier.
“Do tell me everything, Launcelot,” said Miss Mason. “You don’t know how much I’ve suffered all this evening. I hope the interview was a pleasant one?”
“Oh, yes, remarkably pleasant,” answered the young man, with a sneer. “I shall not be exposed to the reproach of having made a mercenary marriage, Laura, at any rate.”
“What do you mean, Launcelot?” cried the young lady, staring aghast at her lover. “You don’t mean that my guardian’s been deceiving me all this time, and that I’m a poor penniless creature after all, and that I ought to have been a companion, or a nursery governess, or something of that kind, as Eleanor was before her marriage. You don’t mean that, Launcelot!”