"No."
"You are known," he said, "throughout the countryside—not that I've been making inquiries, but in spite of myself I have heard—as a stranger, presumably a Frenchwoman, a widow who will probably buy The Dials."
"Oh, I shall never buy the place," she assured him, and then abruptly: "Had you been free to speak of me, what would you have told Westboro'?"
He waited a second, then answered her lightly, but with a feeling which she did not mistake: "I should have asked him to come and see you run up that seam."
"He would not have come."
Remembering very clearly how determined Westboro's decision had been, he did not affirm to the lady his belief that Westboro' would in reality have flown to her.
At the door, later, she bade him good-bye and appeared to gather her courage together, and, with a lapse into a simplicity so entire that she seemed only Frances Denby and to possess no more of title or distinction than any lovely woman, she said to him:
"Mr. Bulstrode, please don't leave the castle."
"Oh, I couldn't sit opposite my friend at dinner, I couldn't meet his eyes now, my dear child."
The Duchess touched his arm. "It's sweet of you to call me so. You are really as young as I am, and certainly I feel an age beyond you. Please stay."