"Oh! forgive me, Lord Beachcombe," she said sweetly. "I am not used to be so cross-questioned and my temper, as you know well, is none of the most patient. Do not let us quarrel over such a trifle as a fancied resemblance between two scraps of writing."
"'Tis no fancied resemblance, Lady Prudence, said Beachcombe doggedly.
"Then if it is a real one, would it not be better for us to see how we can turn it to our mutual advantage, than to wrangle over it?" she suggested. Beachcombe's brow cleared at her conciliatory tone, and his half-awakened suspicions melted under the influence of a sweet and beaming smile.
"There is nothing easier than to turn it to our advantage and his destruction, dear Viscountess, if you will be guided by me," he said eagerly. "If Captain Freemantle should make another attempt to see you—as I feel convinced he will—surely woman's wit can manage to bring us face to face, or at least to let me know where he is to be found. I am convinced that I could show him excellent reasons for giving up those papers, which would prove dangerously compromising—to him—if discovered in his possession. You could secure yourself from further molestation and promote the ends of justice in this way, and place me under a lifelong obligation."
"And how about Captain Freemantle?" suggested Prue. "Would his obligation to me also be lifelong?"
"Why—no doubt," he replied, with a sinister smile.
"Well, Lord Beachcombe," said Prue, with a charming smile, "I will give your message to this Knight of the Road—when I see him—and I doubt not he will wait upon your lordship to receive the benefits you are so anxious to bestow upon him. Oh! you need not thank me" (he had no intention of doing so); "I am always glad to oblige an old friend. And pray do not hurry away; I hear the voice of my gossip, Barbara Sweeting, and presently the rest of London will flock round me to repeat what every one is saying about me, and find out something new to tell in their turn. You, who have given me so much information, can help me to entertain them."
CHAPTER XXII
IN A CHAIRMAN'S LIVERY
Lady Barbara rustled into the room in the most expansive of hoops and the loftiest of heads of lace and feathers, the height, literally, of the mode.