“If you please, sir,” and Cuthbert settled himself to listen.

“About twenty years ago,” said Caranby, plunging headfirst into his subject, “Isabella and Selina Loach were well-known in society.  They were the daughters of a country squire—­ Kent, I remember—­and created a sensation with their beauty when they came to town.  I fell in love with Selina, and Isabella—­if you will pardon my vanity—­fell in love with me.  She hated her sister on my account.  I would have married Selina, but her father, who was hard up, wished her to marry a wealthy American.  Isabella, to part Selina from me, helped her father.  What arguments they used I do not know, but Selina suddenly changed in her manner towards me.  Out of pique—­you may think this weak of me, Cuthbert, but I was a fool in those days—­I became engaged to a girl who was a singer.  Her name was Emilia Saul, and I believe she was of Jewish extraction.  I liked her in a way, and she had a wonderful power over me.  I proposed and was accepted.”

“But if you had really loved Miss Loach—­”

“I should have worn the willow.  I told you I was foolish, and, moreover, Miss Saul fascinated me.  Selina was cold, Emilia was charming, and I was weak.  Therefore, I became engaged to Emilia, and Selina—­as I heard, arranged to marry her wealthy American.  I believe she was angry at my apparently forgetting her so soon.  But she was in fault, not I.”

Cuthbert looked at his smart shoes.  “Had I loved Selina,” said he slowly, “I should have remained true to her, and have married her in spite of the objection of her father—­”

“And of her sister Isabella—­Mrs. Octagon that is; don’t forget that, Cuthbert.  And I could scarcely run away with a girl who believed stories about me.”

“What sort of stories?” asked Mallow, remembering certain rumors.

“The sort that one always does tell of an unmarried man,” retorted Caranby.  “Scandalous stories, which Isabella picked up and retailed to Selina.  But I never pretended to be a saint, and had Selina really loved me she would have overlooked certain faults.  I did love her, Cuthbert.  I did all in my power to prove my love.  For a time I was engaged to her, and when she expressed a wish that I should build her a house after her own design, I consented.”

“The house at Rexton!” exclaimed the young man.

“Exactly.  I got an architect to build it according to designs suggested by Selina.  When our engagement was broken and I became—­out of pique, remember—­engaged to Miss Saul, I still went on building the house.  Selina, I believe, was very angry.  One week when I was out of London she went down with her sister to see the house, and there met Emilia.”

“Ah! then there was trouble?”

“No; there was no time for a quarrel, if that is what you mean.  When the three met, Emilia was walking across a plank on the unfinished second story.  On seeing the Loach girls—­ this is Isabella’s tale—­Emilia lost her footing and fell thirty feet.  She was killed almost instantaneously, and her face was much disfigured.  This took place during the dinner hour when the workmen were absent.  When they returned, the body was found and recognized by the clothes.”