“You can tell me truer than those drunken devils below stairs,” he said. “Where is your sister?”
“At Lady Sarah Tewkesbury’s.”
“So her major-domo swears; but her chairmen, whom I found asleep in the hall, say they set her down at the palace.”
“At Whitehall?”
“Yes, at Whitehall. There is a modish performance there to-night, I hear; but I doubt it is over, for the Strand was crowded with hackney coaches moving eastward. I passed a pair of handsome eyes in a gilded chair, that flashed fury at me as I rode by, which I’ll swear were Mrs. Palmer’s; and, waiting for me in the hall, I found this letter, that had just been handed in by a link, who doubtless belonged to the same lady. Read, Angela; the contents are scarce long enough to weary you.” She took the letter from him with a hand that trembled so that she could hardly hold the sheet of paper.
“Watch! There is an intrigue afoot this night; and you must be a greater dullard than I think you if you cannot unmask a deceitful——”
The final word was one which modern manners forbid in speech or printed page. Angela’s pallid cheek flushed crimson at the sight of the vile epithet. Oh, insane lightness of conduct which made such an insult possible! Standing there, confronting the angry husband, with that detestable paper in her hand, she felt a pang of compunction at the thought that she might have been more strenuous in her arguments with her sister, more earnest and constant in reproof. When the peace and good repute of two lives were at stake, was it for her to consider any question of older or younger, or to be restrained by the fear of offending a sister who had been so generous and indulgent to her?
Fareham saw her distress, and looked at her with angry suspicion.
“Come,” he said, “I scarce expected a lying answer from you; and yet you join with servants to deceive me. You know your sister is not at Lady Sarah’s.”
“I know nothing, except that, wherever she is, I will vouch that she is innocently employed, and has done nothing to deserve that infamous aspersion,” giving him back the letter.