This remark, and various others which had all to do with his lordship, at last induced Mr. Comyn to observe, not without a touch of asperity, that Miss Challoner did not seem to have disliked her late abduction so much as he had supposed. “I confess, ma’am,” he said, “that I had imagined you desperate in the power of one whose merciless violence is, alas, too well know. Apparently I was mistaken, and from your present conversation I am led to assume that his lordship behaved with a respect and amiability astonishing in one of his reputation.”

Her eyes twinkled a little. “Respect and amiability ...” she repeated. “N-no, sir. His lordship was peremptory, overbearing, excessively quick-tempered, and imperious.”

“And yet, ma’am, not repugnant to you.”

“No. Not repugnant to me,” she said quietly.

“Forgive me,” said Mr. Comyn, “but I think you cherish a warmer feeling for Lord Vidal than I was aware of.”

She looked gravely at him. “I thought, from something you said to me, that you had guessed I was not—indifferent to him.”

“I did not know, ma’am, that it had gone so deep. If it is so indeed, I do not immediately perceive why you were so urgent to be quit of him.”

“He does not care for me, sir,” said Miss Challoner simply.

“Nor am i of his world. Conceive the yery natural dismay that must visit his parents were he to ally himself with me. Fathers have been known to disinherit their sons for such offences.”

Mr. Comyn was greatly moved. “Madam, the nobility of your nature is such that I can only say, I honour you.”

“Nonsense!” said Miss Challoner sharply

Chapter XIV

miss marling partook of chocolate very late on the morning after the ball at the Hotel Saint-Vire. It was after eleven when she awoke, and she did not look as though the long sleep had at all refreshed her. Her abigail noticed how woebegone was the little face under the night-cap of point-lace, and drew her own conclusions. Miss Marling was pettish over the choice of a morning wrapper, and complained that her chocolate was too sweet. She demanded to know whether any note had been left for her, or if anyone had called to see her, and on being told that she had neither a note nor a visitor, she pushed her chocolate away, and said she could not drink the stuff, it was so vile.

She was still in bed trying to make up her mind whether or no to write to Mr. Comyn, when a message was brought to her that the Marquis of Vidal was below, and wanted to see her immediately.

She was so disappointed that the visitor was not Mr. Comyn, as she had at first been sure it must be, that tears rose to her eyes, and she said in a tight, hard voice: “I can’t see him. I’m in bed, and I have the headache.”

The lackey’s footsteps retreated down the stairs, and in two minutes a far quicker step sounded, and a peremptory rap fell on the door. “Let me in, Ju; I must see you,” said Vidal’s voice.

“Oh, very well!” answered Juliana crossly.

The Marquis came in, much to the abigail’s disapproval, and signed to that damsel to leave the room. She went, sniffing loudly, and Vidal strode over to the big bed, and stood looking grimly down at Juliana. “The servants tell me Mary Challoner left the house early this morning, and is not yet returned,” he said, without preamble. “Where is she?”

“Good gracious, how should I know?” said Juliana indignantly. She hitched one of her lace-edged pillows up higher. “I dare say she has run away sooner than marry you, and I vow I don’t blame her, if you are in the habit of bursting in on ladies abed in this horrid way.”

“Oh, don’t be missish, Ju!” said his lordship, with an impatient frown. “I left her in your care.”

“Well, and what if you did? I can’t be for ever with her. She wouldn’t have me, I’ll be bound.”

Vidal looked at her rather sharply. “Oh? Have you quarrelled?”

“Pray do not imagine everyone to be like yourself and for ever being in a quarrel!” besought Miss Marling. “If people are only kind to me I’m sure I am the last person to quarrel with anyone.”

His lordship sat down on the edge of the bed. “Now come along, my girl: out with it!” he said. “What has happened between you?”

“Nothing at all!” snapped Juliana. “Though I’ve little doubt Mary thinks me as odious as she thinks you—not that I care a fig for what she or anyone else thinks.”

“I’ll shake you in a minute,” threatened the Marquis. “What’s between you two?”

Miss Marling raised herself on her elbow. “I won’t be bullied by you, Vidal, so pray don’t think it! I think men are the most hateful, cruel wretches imaginable, and I wish you would go away and find your provoking Mary yourself.”

There was a distinct break in her voice, and Vidal, who had a soft corner for her, put his arms round her, and said with unwonted cajolery: “Don’t cry, child. What’s to do?”

Miss Marling’s rigidity left her. She buried her face in Vidal’s blue coat, and said in muffled accents: “I want to go home! Everything is horrid in Paris, and I hope to heaven I never come here again!”

Vidal carefully removed his lace ruffle from her clutching fingers. “Quarrelled with Comyn, have you? You’re a fool, Ju. Stop crying! Has he gone off? Shall I bring him back to you?”

Miss Marling declined this offer with every evidence of loathing, and releasing his lordship, hunted under her pillow for a handkerchief, and fiercely blew her small nose.

“I wonder ...” Vidal stopped, and sat staring at the bedpost somewhat ominously.

Observing the darkling look in his eyes, Juliana said quickly: “What do you wonder? Please do not put on that murderous face, Dominic! It frightens me.”

He glanced down at her. “I wonder whether Mr. Frederick Comyn has anything to do with Mary’s disappearance?” he said.

“What a stupid notion!” commented Juliana. “Why in the world should he help Mary to escape?”

“From damned officiousness, belike,” said Vidal, scowling. “I found the fellow here last night—mighty friendly with Mary.”

“What!” Miss Marling stiffened. “Here? With Mary? What was he doing?”

“Holding her hands, curse his impudence.”

“Oh!” Miss Marling turned quite pale with indignation. “The wicked, deceitful creature! She never breathed a word of it to me! And then to dare to scold me for quarrelling with Frederick! Oh, I could kill them both! Holding her hands at that hour of night! And then to turn jealous because I like to dance with Bertrand! Oh, it beats anything I have ever heard! I’ll never forgive either of them.”

Vidal got up. “I’m going round to Comyn’s lodging,” he said, and walked to the door.

“Don’t kill him, Dominic, I implore you!” shrieked his cousin.

“For God’s sake, dont be such a damned little fool, Juliana!” said the Marquis irritably, and departed.

The owner of Mr. Comyn’s lodgings, a retired valet, opened the door to the Marquis, and admitted him into a narrow hall. On being asked for the English gentleman he said that M. Comyn had paid his shot, and left by coach a bare hour since.

“Left, has he? Alone?” demanded the Marquis.

The valet cast down his eyes. “The Englishwoman who came to see him—oh, but at a very strange hour, m’sieur!—was with him.”

He stole a sly look upwards at the Marquis, and was startled by the expression on that dark face. “She was, eh?” said Vidal through his teeth. He smiled, and the valet retreated a pace, quite involuntarily. “Where have they gone? Do you know?”

“But no, m’sieur, how should I tell? The lady had no baggage, but M. Comyn took all of his. He said to me that he will not return, and he gave to me a letter to deliver in the Rue St. Honore.”

Light flashed in the Marquis’s sombre eyes. “Where in the Rue St. HonorS, my man?”

“It was a letter to an English Marquis, m’sieur, at the Hotel Avon.”

“Was it, by God!” said Vidal, and promptly went off home.

The letter, addressed in Mr. Comyn’s neat handwriting, was lying on the table in the wide hall. Vidal broke the seal, and ran his eye down the single sheet.

“My lord,” wrote Mr. Comyn, “I have to inform your lordship that my betrothal to Miss Juliana Marling being at an end, I have made bold to offer my hand in marriage to the lady lately travelling under your lordship’s protection. I think it only proper to apprise your lordship of this step, since your lordship was good enough to take me into your confidence. Miss Challoner having been so obliging as to accept of my offer, we are leaving Paris immediately. Miss Challoner, while sensible of the honour your lordship does her in proposing for her hand, is highly averse from a marriage which she deems unsuitable, and from the outset doomed to un-happiness. Since I apprehend that this aversion is known to your lordship, it will be unnecessary (I am assured) to request your lordship to relinquish the pretensions which have become a menace to Miss Challoner’s peace of mind.

“I beg to remain, my lord, in all else,

“Your lordship’s obedient servant to command,

“Frederick Comyn.”

His lordship swore softly and long, to the admiration of a lackey, who stood reverently listening to his fluency. Then he proceeded to set his household by the ears, and the word flew round inside of ten minutes that the Devil’s Cub was in a rare taking, and there would be bloodshed before nightfall. From the orders that followed one another like lightning off his lordship’s tongue, it was apparent that he was going on a sudden swift journey, and when Fletcher was bidden send to the gates of Paris to find whether an Englishman accompanied by a lady had passed out of any one of them that morning, none of the household had any doubt at all of the nature of his lordship’s journey.