I never heard you come out so strong before."

"I wish you'd heard what some of those men at Perth said about you."

"And how you answered them as my friend."

"As far as I remember I didn't say much myself. What I did say certainly was not in your favour. But I was hardest on that sweet young lady with the Italian name. You won't mind that because you and she are two, now."

"Can you tell me, Ross, how long you have been eating my bread?"

"I suppose I could."

"Or how much you have drank of my wine?"

"I haven't made a calculation of that nature. It isn't usual."

"For shooting here, how much have you ever contributed?"

"When I shoot I contribute nothing. All the world understands that."

"How much money do you owe me?"

"I owe you nothing that I've ever promised to pay."

"And now you think it a sign of a fine gentleman to go and talk openly at a club about matters which you have heard from me in confidence! I don't. I think it a very--"

"A very what, Sir Francis? I have not done as you allege. But you were going to observe a very--; what was it?" It must be here explained that d.i.c.k Ross was not a man who feared many things; but that Sir Francis feared much. d.i.c.k had little to lose by a row, whereas the Baronet would be injured. The Baronet therefore declined to fill in the epithet which he had omitted. He knew from former experience what d.i.c.k would and what he would not bear.

"I don't choose to descend to Billingsgate," said Sir Francis. "I have my own ideas as to your conduct."

"Very gentlemanlike, isn't it?" said d.i.c.k, with a smile, meaning thereby to impute it to Sir Francis as cowardice that he was unwilling to say the reverse.

"But, under all the circ.u.mstances, it will be quite as well that you should leave the Lodge. You must feel that yourself."

"Oh; quite so. I am delighted to think that I shall be able to leave without having had any unpleasant words. Perhaps to-morrow will do?"

"Just as you please."

"Then I shall be able to add a few drops to all those buckets of claret which you threw in my teeth just now. I wonder whether any gentleman was ever before asked by another gentleman how much wine he had drank in his house, or how many dinners he had eaten. When you asked me did you expect me to pay for my dinners and wine?" Sir Francis refused to make any reply to this question. "And when you delicately hinted at my poverty, had you found my finances to be lower than you'd always known them? It is disagreeable to be a penniless younger brother. I have found it so all my life. And I admit that I ought to have earned my bread. It would have been much better for me had I done so. People may declare that I am good for nothing, and may hold me up as an example to be shunned. But I flatter myself that n.o.body has called me a blackguard. I have told no lies to injure men behind their backs;--much less have I done so to injure a woman. I have sacrificed no girl to my revenge, simply because she has thrown me over. In the little transactions I have had I have always run straight. Now I think that upon the whole I had better go before dinner, and not add anything to the bucket of claret."

"Just as you please," said Sir Francis. Then d.i.c.k Ross left the room and went away to make such arrangements for his departure as were possible to him, and the readers of this story shall see him and hear him no more.

Sir Francis when he was left alone took out Miss Altifiorla's letter and read it again. He was a man who could a.s.sume grand manners in his personal intercourse with women, but was peculiarly apt to receive impression from them. He loved to be flattered, and was p.r.o.ne to believe anything good of himself that was said to him by one of them.

He therefore took the following letter for more than it was worth.

MY DEAR SIR FRANCIS,--I know that you will have been quite quick enough to have understood when you received my former little scrawl what my answer would be. When a woman attempts to deceive a man in such a matter she knows beforehand that the attempt will be vain; and I certainly did not think that I could succeed with you. But yet a feeling of shamefacedness,--what some ladies consider as modesty, though it might more properly be called _mauvaise honte_,--forced me into temporary silence. What could I wish better than to be loved by such a one as you? In the first place there is the rank which goes for much with me. Then there is the money, which I admit counts for something. I would never have allowed myself to marry even if I had chanced to love a poor man. Then there are the manners, and the peculiar station before the world, which is quite separate from the rank. To me these alone are irresistible. Shall I say too that personal appearance does count for much. I can fancy myself marrying an ugly man, but I can fancy also that I could not do it without something of disgust.

Miss Altifiorla when she wrote this had understood well that vanity and love of flattery were conspicuous traits in the character of her admirer.

Having owned so much, what is there more to say than that I am the happiest woman between the seas?

The reader must be here told that this letter had been copied out a second time because in the first copy she had allowed the word girl to pa.s.s in the above sentence. Something told her that she had better write woman instead, and she had written it.

What more is there for me to add to the above except to tell you that I love you with all my heart. Months ago,--it seems to be years now,--when Cecilia Holt had caught your fancy, I did regard her as the most fortunate girl. But I did not regard you as the happiest of men, because I felt sure that there was a something between you which would not suit. There is an asperity, rather than strictness, about her which I knew your spirit would not brook. She would have borne the battlings which would have arisen with an equal temper. She can indeed bear all things with equanimity--as she does her present position.

But you, though you would have battled and have conquered, would still have suffered. I do not think that the wife you now desire is one with whom you will have to wage war. Shall I say that if you marry her whom you have now asked to join her lot with yours, there will be no such fighting? I think that I shall know how to hold my own against the world as your wife. But with you I shall only attempt to hold my own by making myself one with you in all your desires and aspirations.

I am yours with all my heart, with all my body and soul.

FRANCESCA.

I say nothing now about the immediate future, but I hope it will please your highness to visit your most worthy clerical relations in this cathedral city before long. I shall say nothing to any of your clerical relations as to my prospects in life until I shall have received your sanction for doing so. But the sooner I do receive it the better for my peace of mind.

Sir Francis was upon the whole delighted with the letter, and the more delighted as he now read it for the third time. "There is such an air of truth in every word of it." It was thus that he spoke to himself about the letter as he sucked in the flattery. It was thus that Miss Altifiorla had intended that he should receive it. She knew herself too well to suspect that her flattery should fail. Not a word of it failed. In nothing was he more gratified than in her allusions to his matrimonial efforts with Miss Holt. She had a.s.sured him that he would have finally conquered that strong-minded young woman.

But she had at the same time told him of the extreme tenderness of his heart. He absolutely believed her when she whispered to him her secret,--that she had envied Cecilia her lot when Cecilia was supposed to be the happy bride. He quite understood those allusions to his own pleasures and her a.s.surance that she would never interfere with him. There was just a doubt whether a thing so easily got could be worth the keeping. But then he remembered his cousin and determined to be a man of his word.

CHAPTER XX.

THE SECRET ESCAPES.

"All right. See you soon. Ever yours, F. G." Such was the entire response which Miss Altifiorla received from her now declared lover.

Sir Francis had told himself that he hated the bother of writing love-letters. But in truth there was with him also an idea that it might be as well that he should not commit himself to declarations that were in their nature very strong. It was not that he absolutely thought of any possible future event in which his letters might be used against him, but there was present to him a feeling that the least said might be the soonest mended.

Miss Altifiorla when she received the above scrawl was quite satisfied with it. She, too, was cautious in her nature, but not quite so clever as her lover. She did, indeed, feel that she had now caught her fish. She would not let him escape by any such folly as that which Cecilia Holt had committed. The Baronet should be allowed his full swing till she was ent.i.tled to call herself Lady Geraldine.

Then, perhaps, there might be a tussle between them as to which should have his own way,--or hers. The great thing at present was to obtain the position, and she did feel that she had played her cards uncommonly well as far as the game had gone at present.

But there came upon her an irresistible temptation to make her triumph known among her friends at Exeter. All her girl friends had got themselves married. There was Mrs. Green, and Mrs. Thorne, and Mrs. Western. Poor Cecilia had not gained much, but still she was Mrs. Western. Miss Altifiorla did in truth regard herself as Miss Altifiorla with but small satisfaction. She had her theories about women's rights, and the decided advantages of remaining single, and the sufficiency of a lady to stand alone in the world. There was probably some vague glimmering of truth in her ideas; some half-formed belief in her own doctrine. But still it had ever been an uncomfortable creed, and one which she was ready to desert at the slightest provocation. Her friends had all deserted it, and had left her as we say high and dry on the barren bank, while they had been carried away by the fertilising stream. She, too, would now swim down the river of matrimony with a beautiful name, and a handle to it, as the owner of a fine family property. Women's rights was an excellent doctrine to preach, but for practice could not stand the strain of such temptation. And though in boasting of her good fortune she must no doubt confess that she had been wrong, still there would be much more of glory than of shame in the confession.

It was chance probably that made her tell her secret in the first instance to Mrs. Thorne. Mrs. Thorne had been Maude Hippesley and was niece to Sir Francis Geraldine. Miss Altifiorla had pledged herself to Sir Francis not to make known her engagement at the Deanery.

But such pledges go for very little. Mrs. Thorne was not now an inhabitant of Exeter, and was, so to say, the most bosom-friend left to her,--after her disruption from Mrs. Western. Was it probable that such a secret should be kept from a bosom-friend? Mrs. Thorne who had a large circle of friends in the county would hardly have admitted the claim, but she would be more likely to do so after receiving the intimation. Of course it would be conveyed under the seal of a sacred promise,--which no doubt would be broken as soon as she reached the Deanery. On this occasion she called on Miss Altifiorla to ask questions in reference to "poor Cecilia." With herself and the Dean and Mrs. Dean there was real sorrow at Cecilia's troubles. And there was also no mode of acquiring true information. "Do tell me something about poor Cecilia," said Mrs. Thorne.

"Poor Cecilia, indeed! She is there all alone and sees almost no one.

Of course you've heard that Lady Grant was here."

"We thought it so nice of Lady Grant to come all the way from Scotland to see her sister-in-law."

"Lady Grant of course is anxious to get her brother to take back his wife. They haven't a great deal of money among them, and when Mrs.

Holt dies Cecilia's fortune would be a nice addition."

"I don't think Lady Grant can have thought of that," said Mrs.

Thorne.