“Not so.  He learned it elsewhere as well as in confession,” Mr. Esmond answered.  “My father, when wounded at the Boyne, told the truth to a French priest, who was in hiding after the battle, as well as to the priest there, at whose house he died.  This gentleman did not think fit to divulge the story till he met with Mr. Holt at Saint Omer’s.  And the latter kept it back for his own purpose, and until he had learned whether my mother was alive or no.  She is dead years since, my poor patron told me with his dying breath, and I doubt him not.  I do not know even whether I could prove a marriage.  I would not if I could.  I do not care to bring shame on our name, or grief upon those whom I love, however hardly they may use me.  My father’s son, madam, won’t aggravate the wrong my father did you.  Continue to be his widow, and give me your kindness.  ’Tis all I ask from you; and I shall never speak of this matter again.”

“Mais vous etes un noble jeune homme!” breaks out my lady, speaking, as usual with her when she was agitated, in the French language.

“Noblesse oblige,” says Mr. Esmond, making her a low bow.  “There are those alive to whom, in return for their love to me, I often fondly said I would give my life away.  Shall I be their enemy now, and quarrel about a title?  What matters who has it?  ’Tis with the family still.”

“What can there be in that little prude of a woman that makes men so raffoler about her?” cries out my Lady Dowager.  “She was here for a month petitioning the King.  She is pretty, and well conserved; but she has not the bel air.  In his late Majesty’s Court all the men pretended to admire her, and she was no better than a little wax doll.  She is better now, and looks the sister of her daughter; but what mean you all by bepraising her?  Mr. Steele, who was in waiting on Prince George, seeing her with her two children going to Kensington, writ a poem about her, and says he shall wear her colors, and dress in black for the future.  Mr. Congreve says he will write a ‘Mourning Widow,’ that shall be better than his ‘Mourning Bride.’  Though their husbands quarrelled and fought when that wretch Churchill deserted the King (for which he deserved to be hung), Lady Marlborough has again gone wild about the little widow; insulted me in my own drawing-room, by saying ’twas not the old widow, but the young Viscountess, she had come to see.  Little Castlewood and little Lord Churchill are to be sworn friends, and have boxed each other twice or thrice like brothers already.  ’Twas that wicked young Mohun who, coming back from the provinces last year, where he had disinterred her, raved about her all the winter; said she was a pearl set before swine; and killed poor stupid Frank.  The quarrel was all about his wife.  I know ’twas all about her.  Was there anything between her and Mohun, nephew?  Tell me now—­was there anything?  About yourself, I do not ask you to answer questions.”