"Do you know the contents of this letter?"
"I do, your ladyship," said he.
"And you have been sent to see what money I should take for keeping out of the way, and not troubling Lord Knottingley? Very well——"
"I assure your ladyship——"
"You need not speak," she said, with a dignity of gesture which abashed him—which made him regard her with the half-frightened, half-admiring look she had many a time seen on the faces of the scene-shifters after one of her passionate climaxes—"I presume I am still the Marchioness of Knottingley?"
"Certainly."
"And my husband has commissioned you to receive my instructions?"
"He has, your ladyship; and if you would only allow me to explain the circumstances——"
"Mr. Chetwynd, you and I used to talk frankly with each other. I hope you will not embarrass yourself by making an apology for his lordship, when he himself has done that so admirably in this letter. Now, be good enough to attend to what I say. You will secure for me and my daughter a passage to America by the earliest vessel we can reach from here; and to-morrow morning you will accompany us on the first stage of the journey. I will take so much money from you as will land us in New York; whatever surplus there may be will be returned to Lord Knottingley."
"May I beg your ladyship to consider—to remain here until I communicate with his lordship?"