Longford reddened slightly under his pale yellow skin.  What a vulgar way Sir Morton had of putting things, to be sure!

“I certainly asked Mr. Adderley to let us know if there was anything in which we could possibly participate to give pleasure and entertainment to Miss Vancourt,”—­he answered frigidly—­“He seems to have ingratiated himself with both Miss Vancourt and her young friend Miss Bourne—­I should have thought he would have been told of their intending departure.”

“You may depend he knows all about it!” said Sir Mortou—­“He’s double-faced, that’s what he is!  Poets always are.  I hate ’em!  Regular sneaks!—­always something queer about their morals—­look at Byron!—­God bless my soul!—­he ought to have been locked up—­ positively locked up, he-ha-ha!  We’ll come down on this Adderley—­ we’ll take him by surprise and cross-examine him—­we’ll ask him why the devil he has played a double game—–­”

“Pray do not think of such a thing!”—­interrupted Roxmouth, quietly--"I really doubt whether he knows any more than we do.  Maryllia—­ Miss Vancourt—­is not of a character to confide her movements, even to a friend,—­she has always been reticent—–­” He paused.

“And sly!”—­said Miss Tabitha, finishing his sentence for him, “Very sly!  The first time I ever saw Miss Vancourt I knew she was deceitful!  Her very look expresses it!”

“I’m afraid,”—­murmured Roxmouth,—­and then hesitating a moment, he raised his eyes with an affectation of great frankness—­“I’m really afraid you may be right, Miss Tabitha!  I had hoped that I should not have had to speak of a matter,—­a very disagreeable matter which happened the other night—­but, under the circumstances, it may be as well to mention it.  You can perhaps imagine how distressing it has been to me—­distressing and painful—­and indeed incredible,—­to discover the lady whom I have every right to consider almost my promised wife, entering into a kind of amorous entanglement down here with a clergyman!”

Sir Morton bounced in his chair.

“God bless my soul!  A clergyman?”

“A clergyman?” echoed Miss Tabitha, with sudden sharpness in her tone—­“What clergyman do you mean?”

“Who should I mean!” And Roxmouth affected a somewhat sad and forbearing demeanour—­“There is only one who appears to be welcome at the Manor-the Reverend John Walden.”

Miss Tabitha turned a paler waxen yellow-Sir Morton shot forth a deep, dreadful and highly blasphemous oath.

“That prig?” he roared, with a bull-like loudness and fury—­“That high-and-mighty piece of damned superior clerical wisdom?  God bless my soul!  There must be some mistake—–­”

“Yes surely!”—­murmured Miss Tabitha, feeling the clutch of a deadly spite and fear at her heart,—­for was not Walden her clergyman?—­Her choice of a husband?—­the man she had resolved to wed sooner or later, even if she had to wait till he was senile, and did not know what he was doing when led to the altar?  “Mr. Walden is not a man who would be easily allured—–­”