“Is not that Lord Farquhart now?” asked young Grimsby. “Let us watch him approach the lady. Let us see if she has aught left for him.”
A narrow opening in the court that surrounded Lady Barbara permitted Lord Farquhart to draw near her. There was a sudden lull in the chatter that encompassed her, for others beside Jack Grimsby were questioning what the Lady Barbara had reserved for her future lord. Possibly the Lady Barbara had drawn a little aloof from her attendant swains, for she seemed to stand quite alone as she measured her fiancé with her eyes from his head to his feet and back again to his eyes. And all the while her heart was beating tempestuously and her brain was crying passionately: “If only he had loved me! If only he had loved me the least little bit!”
On Lord Farquhart’s lips was an appeal to his lady’s forbearance, in his eyes lay a message to her heart, but she saw them not. His face flushed slightly, for he knew that all eyes were bent upon him. Then it paled under Barbara’s cold glance. For a full moment she looked at him before she turned from him with a shiver that was visible to all, with a shrug that was seen by all. And yet, when she spoke, it was after a vehement movement of her hand as though she had silenced a warning voice.
“My lords and ladies,” she cried, her voice ringing even to the corners of the hushed room, “I—I feel that I must tell you all that this man, this Lord Farquhart, who was to have been my husband in less than a week, is—is your gentleman highwayman, your Black Devil who has made your London roads a terror to all honest men.”
For an instant there was absolute silence. Then surprise, amazement and consternation rose in a babel of sound, but over all Lady Barbara’s voice rang once more.
“I am positive that I speak only the truth,” she cried. “No, Lord Farquhart, I’ll not hear you, now or ever again. I’ve seen him in his black disguise. He told me himself that he was this Black Devil of the roads. He confessed it all to me.”
The lady still stood alone, and the crowd had edged away from Lord Farquhart, leaving him, also, alone. On every face surprise was written, but in no eyes, on no lips, was this so clearly marked as on Lord Farquhart’s own face.
And yet he spoke calmly.
“Is this the sequel to your jest, my lady, or has it deeper meaning than a jest?”
“Ah, jest you chose to call it once before, and jest you may still call it,” she answered, fiercely, but now her hand was pressed close against her heart.