‘Could I ever forget it?’ Rosamund appeared to come shining out of a cloud.  ’Princeliest and truest gentleman, I thought you then, and I know you to be, my dear lord.  I fancied I had lived the scandal down.  I was under the delusion that I had grown to be past backbiting:  and that no man could stand before me to insult and vilify me.  But, for a woman in any so-called doubtful position, it seems that the coward will not be wanting to strike her.  In quitting your service, I am able to affirm that only once during the whole term of it have I consciously overstepped the line of my duties:  it was for Nevil:  and Captain Baskelett undertook to defend your reputation, in consequence.’

‘Has the rascal been questioning your conduct?’ The earl frowned.

’Oh, no! not questioning:  he does not question, he accuses:  he never doubted:  and what he went shouting as a boy, is plain matter of fact to him now.  He is devoted to you.  It was for your sake that he desired me to keep my name from being mixed up in a scandal he foresaw the occurrence of in your house.’

‘He permitted himself to sneer at you?’

’He has the art of sneering.  On this occasion he wished to be direct and personal.’

‘What sort of hints were they?’

Lord Romfrey strode away from her chair that the answer might be easy to her, for she was red, and evidently suffering from shame as well as indignation.

‘The hints we call distinct.’ said Rosamund.

‘In words?’

‘In hard words.’

‘Then you won’t meet Cecil?’

Such a question, and the tone of indifference in which it came, surprised and revolted her so that the unreflecting reply leapt out: 

‘I would rather meet a devil.’

Of how tremblingly, vehemently, and hastily she had said it, she was unaware.  To her lord it was an outcry of nature, astutely touched by him to put her to proof.

He continued his long leisurely strides, nodding over his feet.

Rosamund stood up.  She looked a very noble figure in her broad black-furred robe.  ‘I have one serious confession to make, sir.’

‘What’s that?’ said he.

’I would avoid it, for it cannot lead to particular harm; but I have an enemy who may poison your ear in my absence.  And first I resign my position.  I have forfeited it.’

’Time goes forward, ma’am, and you go round.  Speak to the point.  Do you mean that you toss up the reins of my household?’

‘I do.  You trace it to Nevil immediately?’

‘I do.  The fellow wants to upset the country, and he begins with me.’

’You are wrong, my lord.  What I have done places me at Captain Baskelett’s mercy.  It is too loathsome to think of:  worse than the whip; worse than your displeasure.  It might never be known; but the thought that it might gives me courage.  You have said that to protect a woman everything is permissible.  It is your creed, my lord, and because the world, I have heard you say, is unjust and implacable to women.  In some cases, I think so too.  In reality I followed your instructions; I mean, your example.  Cheap chivalry on my part!  But it pained me not a little.  I beg to urge that in my defence.’