“The rule of contrary,” said Brayder, carelessly.  “She must see the trahison with her eyes.  They believe their eyes.  There’s your chance, Mount.  You step in:  you give her revenge and consolation—­two birds at one shot.  That’s what they like.”

“You’re an ass, Brayder,” the nobleman exclaimed.  “You’re an infernal blackguard.  You talk of this little woman as if she and other women were all of a piece.  I don’t see anything I gain by this confounded letter.  Her husband’s a brute—­that’s clear.”

“Will you leave it to me, Mount?”

“Be damned before I do!” muttered my lord.

“Thank you.  Now see how this will end:  You’re too soft, Mount.  You’ll be made a fool of.”

“I tell you, Brayder, there’s nothing to be done.  If I carry her off—­I’ve been on the point of doing it every day—­what’ll come of that?  She’ll look—­I can’t stand her eyes—­I shall be a fool—­worse off with her than I am now.”

Mountfalcon yawned despondently.  “And what do you think?” he pursued.  “Isn’t it enough to make a fellow gnash his teeth?  She’s"...he mentioned something in an underbreath, and turned red as he said it.

“Hm!” Brayder put up his mouth and rapped the handle of his cane on his chin.  “That’s disagreeable, Mount.  You don’t exactly want to act in that character.  You haven’t got a diploma.  Bother!”

“Do you think I love her a bit less?” broke out my lord in a frenzy.  “By heaven!  I’d read to her by her bedside, and talk that infernal history to her, if it pleased her, all day and all night.”

“You’re evidently graduating for a midwife, Mount.”

The nobleman appeared silently to accept the imputation.

“What do they say in town?” he asked again.

Brayder said the sole question was, whether it was maid, wife, or widow.

“I’ll go to her this evening,” Mountfalcon resumed, after—­to judge by the cast of his face—­reflecting deeply.  “I’ll go to her this evening.  She shall know what infernal torment she makes me suffer.”

“Do you mean to say she don’t know it?”

“Hasn’t an idea—­thinks me a friend.  And so, by heaven!  I’ll be to her.”

“A—­hm!” went the Honourable Peter.  “This way to the sign of the Green Man, ladies!”

“Do you want to be pitched out of the window, Brayder?”

“Once was enough, Mount.  The Salvage Man is strong.  I may have forgotten the trick of alighting on my feet.  There—­there!  I’ll be sworn she’s excessively innocent, and thinks you a disinterested friend.”

“I’ll go to her this evening,” Mountfalcon repeated.  “She shall know what damned misery it is to see her in such a position.  I can’t hold out any longer.  Deceit’s horrible to such a girl as that.  I’d rather have her cursing me than speaking and looking as she does.  Dear little girl!—­she’s only a child.  You haven’t an idea how sensible that little woman is.”