’Blame me as much as you like:  I do myself.  Half my rage with him is at myself for putting her in the way of such a beast to annoy.  Each time she came, I said it was to be the last.  I let her see what a mercy from heaven she was to me.  She would come.  It has not been many times.  She wishes me either to . . .  Captain Marsett has promised.  And nothing seems hard—­to me when my own God’s angel is by.  She is!  I’m not such a bad woman, but I never before I knew her knew the meaning of the word virtue.  There is the young lady that man worried with his insulting remarks! though he must have known she was a lady:—­because he found her in my rooms.’

‘You were present when, as you say, he insulted her?’

‘I was.  Here it commenced; and he would see her downstairs.’

‘You heard?’

‘Of course, I never left her.’

‘Give me a notion . . .’

‘To get her to make an appointment:  to let him conduct her home.’

‘She was alone?’

‘Her maid was below.’

‘And this happened . . .?’

’Yesterday, after dark.  My Ned—­Captain Marsett encourages him to be familiar.  I should be the lowest of women if I feared the threats of such a reptile of a man.  I could tell you more.  I can’t always refuse his visits, though if Ned knew the cur he is!  Captain Marsett is easy-going.’

‘I should like to know where he lives.’

She went straight to the mantelpiece, and faced about with a card, handing it, quite aware that it was a charge of powder.

Desperate things to be done excused the desperate said; and especially they seemed a cover to the bald and often spotty language leaping out of her, against her better taste, when her temper was up.

‘Somewhere not very distant,’ said Dartrey perusing.  ’Is he in the town to-day, do you know?’

‘I am not sure; he may be.  Her name . . .’

‘Have no fear.  Ladies’ names are safe.’

‘I am anxious that she may not be insulted again.’

‘Did she show herself conscious of it?’

’She stopped speaking:  she looked at the door.  She may come again—­or never! through that man!’

‘You receive him, at his pleasure?’

’Captain Marsett wishes me to.  He is on his way home.  He calls Major Worrell my pet spite.  All I want is; not to hear of the man.  I swear he came yesterday on the chance of seeing—­for he forced his way up past my servant; he must have seen Miss Radnor’s maid below.’

‘You don’t mean, that he insulted her hearing?’

‘Oh!  Captain Fenellan, you know the style.’

‘Well, I thank you,’ Dartrey said.  ’The young lady is the daughter of my dearest friends.  She’s one of the precious—­you’re quite right.  Keep the tears back.’