“His wife, for one,” replied Dorothy, laying a peculiar emphasis on the words.
“His wife!” simultaneously echoed a score of voices. “The black horseman a Benedict! Holtspur married! We never knew that.”
“Nor I,” continued the pretty imparter of the startling intelligence—“not till an hour ago. I’ve just heard it from cousin Wayland here; who came this morning from court—where, it seems, Master Holtspur is well-known; though not by the name he has chosen to make celebrated among us simple rustics of Buckinghamshire.”
“’Tis quite true,” said a youth in courtier costume, who stood close to her who had thus appealed to him. “The gentleman my cousin speaks of is married. I thought it was known to everybody.”
“How could it, dear Wayland?” asked Dorothy, with an air of charming simplicity. “Master Holtspur was not known to any one here—except, I believe, to Sir Marmaduke Wade and his family; and, if I mistake not, only very slightly to them?”
A significant curling of the speaker’s pretty nostril accompanied this final remark—which was intended as an interrogative.
“That is true,” answered Sir Marmaduke. “My acquaintance, with the gentleman you speak of, is but slight. I was not aware of his being a married man; but what has that to do—”
“O, ladies and gentlemen!” interrupted the freshly arrived courtier, “perhaps you are not aware of the real name of this cavalier who has been calling himself Holtspur. He has been of some notoriety at court; though that was before my time; and I’ve only heard of it from others. There was a scandal, I believe—”
“Come, come, Wayland!” cried his fair cousin, interrupting him. “No scandals here. Keep it, whatever it be, to yourself.”
“His name! his name!” shouted a score of voices; while twice that number of ears—piqued by the word “scandal”—were eagerly bent to listen to the threatened disclosure.