She looked from him to Nell.

"What am I to do?" she asked, as if in great distress. "Miss Lorton, you

see my predicament; please come to my aid, and help me to escape. Tell

Lord Angleford that you do not wish me to say any more."

Still looking straight before her, Nell responded, almost inaudibly: "Speak! Yes--tell them!"

Lady Luce still seemed reluctant; at last she said, with an embarrassed

laugh: "After all, it may amount to nothing, and you'll be very much

disappointed. Indeed, it is very likely not true."

Her reluctance was not altogether feigned, for it needed even her

audacity and assurance to make such an accusation as she was about to

Advertisement..

bring against the future Countess of Angleford, and under her future

roof; but she braced herself to a supreme effort, and, though she was

really as white as Nell, she looked round boldly, as if confident of the

truth of the thing she was going to say.

"Everybody knows what Sir Archie is," she began. "He's the worst flirt

and the most dangerous man in England. Everybody has heard stories of

his delinquencies; some of them are true, but many of them, I dare say,

are false, and I've not the least doubt that Miss Lorton will tell us

that the story that she was about to elope with him from Wolfer House

one morning, but that she was stopped by Lord Wolfer, is an absurd

fable. The story goes that she did not know, until Lord Wolfer told her

at the very moment that she and Sir Archie were leaving the house, that

Sir Archie was a married man. Now that's the whole affair, and I really

think Miss Lorton will be grateful to me for giving her an opportunity

of rising in true dramatic fashion and exclaiming: 'It is not true!'"

She nodded at Nell and laughed softly.

There were many who echoed her laugh, for, indeed, the story did sound

like an absurd fable. All eyes were turned on Nell, and all waited for

her to bring about with a denial the satisfactory dénouement. Drake did

not laugh, for his heart was burning with fury against the audacity, the

shameless insolence, of Lady Luce; but he smiled in a grim fashion as

his eyes still rested on Nell's face.

A moment passed. Why did she not rise? Why did she not, at any rate,

speak? Four words would be enough: "It is not true!"

But she remained motionless and silent. A kind of consternation began to

creep over those who were watching, Drake went up to her and laid his

hand on her shoulder.




Most Popular