Nothing further did either of them say, concerning the marriage.  Nor did Carinthia Jane hear any mention of Lord Fleetwood from her brother on the landingplace at Dover.  She was taken to Admiral Baldwin Fakenham’s house in Hampshire; and there she remained, the delight of his life, during two months, patiently expecting and rebuking the unmaidenliness of her expectations, as honest young women in her position used to do.  So did they sometimes wait for years; they have waited until they withered into their graves, like the vapours of a brief winter’s day:  a moving picture of a sex restrained by modesty in those purer times from the taking of one step forward unless inquired for.

Two months she waited in our ‘dark land.’  January arrived, and her brother.  Henrietta communicated the news: 

’My Janey, you are asked by Lord Fleetwood whether it is your wish that he should marry you.’

Now, usually a well-born young woman’s answer, if a willing one, is an example of weak translation.  Here it was the heart’s native tongue, without any roundabout, simple but direct.

‘Oh, I will, I am ready, tell him.’

Remember, she was not speaking publicly.

Henrietta knew the man enough to be glad he did not hear.  She herself would have felt a little shock on his behalf:  only, that answer suited the scheme of the pair of lovers.

How far those two were innocent in not delivering the whole of Lord Fleetwood’s message to Carinthia Jane through Lord Levellier, we are unable to learn.  We may suspect the miserly nobleman of curtailing it for his purposes; and such is my idea.  But the answer would have been the same, I am sure.

In consequence and straight away, Chillon John betakes him to Admiral Baldwin and informs him of Lord Fleetwood’s proposal on the night at Baden, and renewal of it through the mouth of Lord Levellier, not communicating, however (he may really not have known), the story of how it had been wrung from the earl by a surprise movement on the part of the one-armed old lord, who burst out on him in the street from the ambush of a Club-window, where he had been stationed every day for a fortnight, indefatigably to watch for the passing of the earl, as there seemed no other way to find him.  They say, indeed, there was a scene, judging by the result, and it would have been an excellent scene for the stage; though the two noblemen were to all appearance politely exchanging their remarks.  But the audience hearing what passes, appreciates the courteous restraint of an attitude so contrasting with their tempers.  Behind the ostentation of civility, their words were daggers.