"Did you, indeed, think us bloodthirsty enough to regret the saving of a fellow-creature's life?" said Prue, with grave reproof. "I hoped that you had a better opinion of our humanity."
"Humanity," echoed the baronet, with ill-dissembled irritation. "Such angelic sentiments well become the cruel beauty whose path is strewn with bleeding hearts. But has my dear Prudence no pity to spare for the unhappy swain, condemned to worse than death by Robin, the highwayman's, unexpected good luck?"
"On the contrary," laughed Prue, "she congratulates you on your escape; believe me, a far greater piece of luck than Robin's."
"Do not jest, dear one, I implore you," said Sir Geoffrey seriously. "You certainly have not considered the position this miscarriage of justice has placed you in. Let me lay before you the consequences—"
"Pray, do not," interrupted Prue pettishly. "If I am resigned to the will of Heaven, why persecute me with reasons for rebellion?"
Sir Geoffrey, with his hand upon his heart, bowed to the ground.
"Before such piety, I am dumb," he said. "Is it permitted to ask if you are reconciled to your creditors as well as to the means you took to rid yourself of them?"
"It is not," replied Prue with overpowering dignity. "That is my private affair and I do not care to discuss it, even with Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert. By the by, Sir Geoffrey"—with an entire change of tone and manner—"you always know the latest news; do tell us why Mrs. Tewkesbury has gone home to her father, and whether her husband is going to fight a duel or will merely horsewhip her hair-dresser?"
The conversation drifted into safer channels, and Prue was soon her own bright, frivolous, enchanting self. Other guests dropped in; fashion, scandal, and the duchess' masquerade were discussed, and Prue had a saucy answer for every compliment and a ready laugh for every jest, and beneath her dainty bodice such a tumult of fear and shame and sharp sense of defeat, and withal such strange, swift stabs of something that was not pain, and yet hurt her more than all the other emotions that quickened her pulse and sent the blood surging through her brain.
It was late in the afternoon, and Prue's guests were making their adieux, when Robin's messenger came—a rustic-looking youth with a ruddy complexion and a shock of tow-colored hair. He was dressed like the footboy of a prosperous tradesman, and carried an oilskin covered basket—and of a surety bore no resemblance to the crippled beggar who had followed Robin so persistently on his way to the conference in Lincoln's Inn.