’Certainly; I shall only be too happy to give you any information in my power.’  But the moment after he had made this polite speech, he recollected Molly’s speech—­that she would refer her case to Lady Harriet.  But the letters had been returned, and the affair was now wound up.  She had come off conqueror, he the vanquished.  Surely she would never have been so ungenerous as to appeal after that?

’There are reports about Miss Gibson and you current among the gossips of Hollingford.  Are we to congratulate you on your engagement to that young lady?’

‘Ah! by the way, Preston, we ought to have done it before,’ interrupted Lord Cumnor, in hasty goodwill.  But his daughter said quietly, ’Mr. Preston has not yet told us if the reports are well founded, papa.’

She looked at him with the air of a person expecting an answer, and expecting a truthful answer.

‘I am not so fortunate,’ replied he, trying to make his horse appear fidgety, without incurring observation.

‘Then I may contradict that report?’ asked Lady Harriet quietly.  ’Or is there any reason for believing that in time it may come true?  I ask because such reports, if unfounded, do harm to young ladies.’

‘Keep other sweethearts off,’ put in Lord Cumnor, looking a good deal pleased at his own discernment.  Lady Harriet went on,—­

‘And I take a great interest in Miss Gibson.’

Mr. Preston saw from her manner that he was ‘in for it,’ as he expressed it to himself.  The question was, how much or how little did she know?

’I have no expectation or hope of ever having a nearer interest in Miss Gibson than I have at present.  I shall be glad if this straightforward answer relieves your ladyship from your perplexity.’

He could not help the touch of insolence that accompanied these last words.  It was not in the words themselves, nor in the tone in which they were spoken, nor in the look which accompanied them, it was in all; it implied a doubt of Lady Harriet’s right to question him as she did; and there was something of defiance in it as well.  But this touch of insolence put Lady Harriet’s mettle up; and she was not one to check herself, in any course, for the opinion of an inferior.

’Then, sir! are you aware of the injury you may do to a young lady’s reputation if you meet her, and detain her in long conversations, when she is walking by herself, unaccompanied by any one?  You give rise—­you have given rise to reports.’

’My dear Harriet, are not you going too far?  You don’t know—­Mr Preston may have intentions—­unacknowledged intentions.’

’No, my lord.  I have no intentions with regard to Miss Gibson.  She may be a very worthy young lady—­I have no doubt she is.  Lady Harriet seems determined to push me into such a position that I cannot but acknowledge myself to be—­it is not enviable—­not pleasant to own—­but I am, in fact, a jilted man; jilted by Miss Kirkpatrick, after a tolerably long engagement.  My interviews with Miss Gibson were not of the most agreeable kind—­as you may conclude when I tell you she was, I believe, the instigator—­certainly, she was the agent in this last step of Miss Kirkpatrick’s.  Is your ladyship’s curiosity’ (with an emphasis on this last word) ’satisfied with this rather mortifying confession of mine?’