“The doctor, ma'am, is disposed of already,” he assured her. “Very definitely disposed of. Ask Leduc. He will tell you.”
“Not a doubt of that,” she answered. “Leduc talks too much.”
“You have a spite against him for the information he gave me on the score of how and by whom I was nursed. So have I. Because he did not tell me before, and because when he told me he would not tell me enough. He has no eyes, this Leduc. He is a dolt, who only sees the half of what happens, and only remembers the half of what he has seen.”
“I am sure of it,” said she.
He looked surprised an instant. Then he laughed. “I am glad that we agree.”
“But you have yet to learn the cause. Had this Leduc used his eyes or his ears to better purpose, he had been able to tell you something of the extent to which I am in your debt.”
“Ah?” said he, mystified. Then: “The news will be none the less welcome from your lips, ma'am,” said he. “Is it that you are interested in the ravings of delirium, and welcomed the opportunity of observing them at first hand? I hope I raved engagingly, if so be that I did rave. Would it, perchance, be of a lady that I talked in my fevered wanderings?—of a lady pale as a lenten rose, with soft brown eyes, and lips that—”
“Your guesses are all wild,” she checked him. “My debt is of a more real kind. It concerns my—my reputation.”
“Fan me, ye winds!” he ejaculated.
“Those fine ladies and gentlemen of the town had made my name a by-word,” she explained in a low, tense voice, her eyelids lowered. “My foolishness in running off with my Lord Rotherby—that I might at all cost escape the tyranny of my Lady Ostermore” (Mr. Caryll's eyelids flickered suddenly at that explanation)—“had made me a butt and a jest and an object for slander. You remember, yourself, sir, the sneers and oglings, the starings and simperings in the park that day when you made your first attempt to champion my cause, inducing the Lady Mary Deller to come and speak to me.”