“I beg you to give me a word apart, for I have a message to you from Colonel Brereton.”
Janice’s hand dropped from the officer’s arm. “What is it?” she asked.
“’T is not to be given here,” urged the man. “I pray you to let me order your equipage and take you away. Another dance will be beginning on the moment, and some one will claim you.”
The girl raised her hand and once more placed it on her partner’s arm; taking the motion as a consent to his wishes, the officer led her to the doorway.
“Call Miss Meredith’s chair,” he ordered of the guard grouped about the outer door, and in a moment was able to hand her into the vehicle.
“Where to?” he asked. “I mean—Home!” he cried, in a far louder voice, as if to drown the slip, at the same moment jumping in and taking his seat beside her.
As he did so, the girl shrank away from him toward her corner of the gig. “Who are you?” she cried in a frightened voice.
“Who should I be but John Brereton?”
“Are you mad,” cried the girl, “to thus venture within the lines?”
“The news which brought me was enough to make me so,” answered Jack. “You cannot know what you are doing that you so much as think of marrying that scum. For years he has been nothing but a spy and mackerel, willing to do the dirtiest work, and the scorn of every decent man in London, as here. Are you, are your father and mother, are your friends, all Bedlam-crazed that you even consider it?”