Though to Lady Bell horsemen’s cloaks were not uncommon accoutrements for travellers, and men whose changes of suit were not numerous, yet this great, hideous, hide-all of a cloak—exactly such a cloak as may be worn by the Stranger in Kotzebue’s drama, to this day—was attended with the result of investing its wearer with mystery. The air of that cloak alone sent a thrill through poor Lady Bell, while she had an instinctive consciousness that the riding-boots seen beneath the cloak were filthy and tattered. Above it, set in the unshorn Ishmaelite face over which the three-cornered hat was cocked, and which she had never seen before, were two bloodshot eyes, that, in their tendency to leer, inspected her sharply.
Lady Bell tried to pass without speaking, and when that was in vain, she assumed her grandest air, and said, with the tremor in her voice running through its imperativeness—
“Pray, sir, let me pass.”
“Not so fast, young lady,” replied the man, in a thick harsh voice, but with the accent of a man of education; “I want speech with one of your sort—perhaps with you in particular. Ain’t you young Lady Bell Etheredge?”
“And what if I be?” demanded Lady Bell, in doubt and dismay for the consequences of the admission, yet not seeing how she could avoid it, while she rued her folly bitterly.
“A vast deal in my favour, if you be, my young lady,” replied her challenger, with a mock wave of his hand, and a flourish of his hat revealing the absence of a wig, “scratch” or “bag,” to hide the thin and almost white hair of a head which had been blanched betimes in the ways of vice. “I wish you to tell me if Mrs. Die Godwin has come here. I have the strongest and tenderest reasons for the inquiry,” he protested, with a loud laugh.
Then this was her aunt Die’s terrible suitor, whom her Uncle Godwin had destroyed? This was that Cholmondely who would not leave off seeking revenge, after the cruel kindness of the Godwins had changed to hardly more cruel hatred, by flaunting his degradation in Mrs. Die’s face, and persecuting her with her old letters and love-tokens, and wringing money from the woman who detested and spurned him?
Lady Bell had heard that he had threatened to blow out either his own or his mistress’s brains—it was a toss up which; but as she would be only too glad to get rid of him, he rather thought the lady’s brains would have the preference. Perhaps he had a pistol beneath his cloak at this moment, and might begin by practising his aim on Lady Bell. She gave a gasp before she delivered her answer—“When I quitted Mrs. Die she was sitting on the terrace with the main part of the company.”
“By heavens, that will not serve my purpose!” swore the man; then he added, either by way of intimidation, or because he was three-fourths desperate and dangerous, “I wonder how it would do to take you in her stead,” and caught Lady Bell by the wrist.
“Unhand me, unhand me, sir!” cried Lady Bell, striving to free her hand, and when she did not succeed, uttering a shrill scream before the man could clap his hand on her mouth.