They sped instantly to the porter’s lodge, where the fellow had not fastened his door that led into the court; and pistol in hand came upon the terrified wretch, and bade him be silent.  Then they asked him (Esmond’s head reeled, and he almost fell as he spoke) when Lord Castlewood had arrived?  He said on the previous evening, about eight of the clock.—­“And what then?”—­His lordship supped with his sister.—­“Did the man wait?” Yes, he and my lady’s maid both waited:  the other servants made the supper; and there was no wine, and they could give his lordship but milk, at which he grumbled; and—­and Madam Beatrix kept Miss Lucy always in the room with her.  And there being a bed across the court in the Chaplain’s room, she had arranged my lord was to sleep there.  Madam Beatrix had come down stairs laughing with the maids, and had locked herself in, and my lord had stood for a while talking to her through the door, and she laughing at him.  And then he paced the court awhile, and she came again to the upper window; and my lord implored her to come down and walk in the room; but she would not, and laughed at him again, and shut the window; and so my lord, uttering what seemed curses, but in a foreign language, went to the Chaplain’s room to bed.

“Was this all!”—­“All,” the man swore upon his honor; all as he hoped to be saved.—­“Stop, there was one thing more.  My lord, on arriving, and once or twice during supper, did kiss his sister, as was natural, and she kissed him.”  At this Esmond ground his teeth with rage, and wellnigh throttled the amazed miscreant who was speaking, whereas Castlewood, seizing hold of his cousin’s hand, burst into a great fit of laughter.

“If it amuses thee,” says Esmond in French, “that your sister should be exchanging of kisses with a stranger, I fear poor Beatrix will give thee plenty of sport.”—­Esmond darkly thought, how Hamilton, Ashburnham, had before been masters of those roses that the young Prince’s lips were now feeding on.  He sickened at that notion.  Her cheek was desecrated, her beauty tarnished; shame and honor stood between it and him.  The love was dead within him; had she a crown to bring him with her love, he felt that both would degrade him.

But this wrath against Beatrix did not lessen the angry feelings of the Colonel against the man who had been the occasion if not the cause of the evil.  Frank sat down on a stone bench in the court-yard, and fairly fell asleep, while Esmond paced up and down the court, debating what should ensue.  What mattered how much or how little had passed between the Prince and the poor faithless girl?  They were arrived in time perhaps to rescue her person, but not her mind; had she not instigated the young Prince to come to her; suborned servants, dismissed others, so that she might communicate with him?  The treacherous heart within her had surrendered, though the place was safe; and it was to win this that he had given a life’s struggle and devotion; this, that she was ready to give away for the bribe of a coronet or a wink of the Prince’s eye.