As Lambourne, on entering, dropped the lap of his cloak from his face, she knew Varney’s profligate servant, the very last person, excepting his detested master, by whom she would have wished to be discovered.  But she was still closely muffled in her travelling dress, and as Lambourne had scarce ever been admitted to her presence at Cumnor Place, her person, she hoped, might not be so well known to him as his was to her, owing to Janet’s pointing him frequently out as he crossed the court, and telling stories of his wickedness.  She might have had still greater confidence in her disguise had her experience enabled her to discover that he was much intoxicated; but this could scarce have consoled her for the risk which she might incur from such a character in such a time, place, and circumstances.

Lambourne flung the door behind him as he entered, and folding his arms, as if in mockery of the attitude of distraction into which Amy had thrown herself, he proceeded thus:  “Hark ye, most fair Calipolis—­or most lovely Countess of clouts, and divine Duchess of dark corners—­if thou takest all that trouble of skewering thyself together, like a trussed fowl, that there may be more pleasure in the carving, even save thyself the labour.  I love thy first frank manner the best—–­like thy present as little”—­(he made a step towards her, and staggered)—­“as little as—­such a damned uneven floor as this, where a gentleman may break his neck if he does not walk as upright as a posture-master on the tight-rope.”

“Stand back!” said the Countess; “do not approach nearer to me on thy peril!”

“My peril!—­and stand back!  Why, how now, madam?  Must you have a better mate than honest Mike Lambourne?  I have been in America, girl, where the gold grows, and have brought off such a load on’t—­”

“Good friend,” said the Countess, in great terror at the ruffian’s determined and audacious manner, “I prithee begone, and leave me.”

“And so I will, pretty one, when we are tired of each other’s company—­not a jot sooner.”  He seized her by the arm, while, incapable of further defence, she uttered shriek upon shriek.  “Nay, scream away if you like it,” said he, still holding her fast; “I have heard the sea at the loudest, and I mind a squalling woman no more than a miauling kitten.  Damn me!  I have heard fifty or a hundred screaming at once, when there was a town stormed.”

The cries of the Countess, however, brought unexpected aid in the person of Lawrence Staples, who had heard her exclamations from his apartment below, and entered in good time to save her from being discovered, if not from more atrocious violence.  Lawrence was drunk also from the debauch of the preceding night, but fortunately his intoxication had taken a different turn from that of Lambourne.

“What the devil’s noise is this in the ward?” he said.  “What! man and woman together in the same cell?—­that is against rule.  I will have decency under my rule, by Saint Peter of the Fetters!”