bring me bad news, I will do my best to bear it. May I trust to your kindness not to keep me in suspense?'
'It will help me to make my intrusion as little painful as possible to your ladyship,' replied Sir Patrick, 'if I am permitted to ask a question. Have you heard of any obstacle to the contemplated marriage of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn and Mrs. Glenarm?'
Even that distant reference to Anne produced an ominous change for the worse in Lady Holchester's manner.
'I have heard of the obstacle to which you allude,' she said. 'Mrs. Glenarm is an intimate friend of mine. She has informed me that a person named Silvester, an impudent adventuress—'
'I beg your ladyship's pardon. You are doing a cruel wrong to the noblest woman I have ever met with.'
'I can not undertake, Sir Patrick, to enter into your reasons for admiring her. Her conduct toward my son has, I repeat, been the conduct of an impudent adventuress.'
Those words showed Sir Patrick the utter hopelessness of shaking her prejudice against Anne. He decided on proceeding at once to the disclosure of the truth.
'I entreat you so say no more,' he answered. 'Your ladyship is speaking of your son's wife.'
'My son has married Miss Silvester?'
'Yes.'
She turned deadly pale. It appeared, for an instant, as if the shock had completely overwhelmed her. But the mother's weakness was only momentary The virtuous indignation of the great lady had taken its place before Sir Patrick could speak again. She rose to terminate the interview.
'I presume,' she said, 'that your errand here is as an end.'
Sir Patrick rose, on his side, resolute to do the duty which had brought him to the house.
'I am compelled to trespass on your ladyship's attention for a few minutes more,' he answered. 'The circumstances attending the marriage of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn are of no common importance. I beg permission (in the interests of his family) to state, very briefly, what they are.'
In a few clear sentences he narrated what had happened, that afternoon, in Portland Place. Lady Holchester listened with the steadiest and coldest attention. So far as outward appearances were concerned, no impression was produced upon her.
'Do you expect me,' she asked, 'to espouse the interests of a person who has prevented my son from marrying the lady of his choice, and of mine?'
'Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn, unhappily, has that reason for resenting his wife's innocent interference with interests of considerable, importance to him,' returned Sir Patrick. 'I request your ladyship to consider whether it is desirable—in view of your son's conduct in the future—to allow his wife to stand in the doubly perilous relation toward him of being also a cause of estrangement between his father and himself.'
He had put it with scrupulous caution. But Lady Holchester understood what he had refrained from saving as well as what he had actually said. She had hitherto remained standing—she now sat down again. There was a visible impression produced on her at last.
'In Lord Holchester's critical state of health,' she answered, 'I decline to take the responsibility of telling him what you have just told me. My own influence has been uniformly exerted in my son's favor—as long as my interference could be productive of any good result. The time for my interference has passed. Lord Holchester has altered his will this morning. I was not present; and I have not yet been informed of what has been done. Even if I knew—'
'Your ladyship would naturally decline,' said Sir Patrick, 'to communicate the information to a stranger.'
'Certainly. At the same time, after what you have said, I do not feel justified in deciding on this matter entirely by myself. One of Lord Holchester's executors is now in the house. There can be no impropriety in your seeing him —if you wish it. You are at liberty to say, from me, that I leave it entirely to his discretion to decide what ought to be done.'
'I gladly accept your ladyship's proposal.'
Lady Holchester rang the bell at her side.
'Take Sir Patrick Lundie to Mr. Marchwood,' she said to the servant.
Sir Patrick started. The name was familiar to him, as the name of a friend.
'Mr. Marchwood of Hurlbeck?' he asked.
'The same.'
With that brief answer, Lady Holchester dismissed her visitor. Following the servant to the other end of the corridor, Sir Patrick was conducted into a small room—the ante-chamber to the bedroom in which Lord Holchester lay. The door of communication was closed. A gentleman sat writing at a table near the window. He rose, and held out his hand, with a look of surprise, when the servant announced Sir Patrick's name. This was Mr. Marchwood.
After the first explanations had been given, Sir Patrick patiently reverted to the object of his visit to Holchester House. On the first occasion when he mentioned Anne's name he observed that Mr. Marchwood became, from that moment, specially interested in what he was saying.
'Do you happen to be acquainted with the lady?' he asked
'I only know her as the cause of a very strange proceeding, this morning, in that room.' He pointed to Lord Holchester's bedroom as he spoke.
'Are you at liberty to mention what the proceeding was?'
'Hardly—even to an old friend like you—unless I felt it a matter of duty, on my part, to state the circumstances. Pray go on with what you were saying to me. You were on the point of telling me what brought you to this house.'
