"No, no, Maine. When Carstairs was hiding behind the screen he was not dying with anxiety to take the Marchesa's crime on his white shoulders—not at that moment. That explanation don't wash. I believe I know a better one."
Wentworth became very red.
"The Duchess's maid! Did you ever see her? No, evidently not. You've no time for looking at young maids. Taken up with contemplating an old maid in the glass. You miss a lot, I can tell you. She was the prettiest little baggage I've set eyes on for years. And she was not of an iron virtue. But she wouldn't look at a little thing like me. Can't think why. Come, now, don't look so demure. We aren't all plaister saints like you. I'm not, in spite of my Madonna face. Wasn't that the truth? The Marchesa story is for the gallery. But you and I are behind the scenes. Mum's the word. But wasn't that why Carstairs was hanging about the house after everyone else had gone just for the same reason that I was—to get a word with that little hussy?"
At that moment a tall, middle-aged man came into the room, and Lord John's roving eye fell upon him. He sprang to his feet.
"Lossiemouth," he said, seizing the latter's unwilling hand. "Why, you're the very man I wanted to see. Congratulations, my dear chap. All my heart. Ship come in, and ancestral halls, and going to be married too, all in one fell swoop. Know Miss Bellairs a little. Jumped with her in the same skipping rope in childhood's happy hours, danced with her at her first ball. Madly in love with her. Never seen her since."
Wentworth escaped.
The chamber of his soul had been long in readiness, swept and garnished for the restless spirit that had returned to it—not alone.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Est-il indispensable, qu'on s'élève à un point d'où le devoir n'apparaisse plus comme un choix de nos sentiments les plus nobles, mais comme une silencieuse nécessité de toute notre nature.