Mr. Markham seemed undecided. “It’s no business of yours,” he said savagely. “But if I find ’twas you did it.—Which way did the chaise go?”
“To—towards London, sir,” nervously answered mine host. “But ’tis only what Tom says. I didn’t see myself, and indeed, sir—”
Mr. Markham said something between his teeth at which mine host cast a horrified glance at Miss Merriot. The lady appeared to be unmoved. “Saddle me a horse at once! Where’s my hat?”
Light dawned on Mr. Merriot. “Egad, it’s a runaway, Kate. Faith, sir, it seems my—er—impetuosity was indeed ill-timed. A horse, of course! You should be up with the chaise soon enough. A horse for the gentleman!” Mr. Merriot swept out into the court, bearing mine host before him.
“It’s ready saddled, sir, but Tom says the gentleman ordered it half an hour since,” said the puzzled landlord.
“Saddled and ready, eh? Then see it brought round to the door, for the gentleman’s in a hurry.”
“Yes, sir, but how came it that the horse was bespoke when the gentleman was a-laying like one dead?”
“Bespoke? A ruse, man, a ruse, and your man in madam’s pay very like. Best keep your mouth shut. Ah, behold the bereft gentleman!”
Mr. Markham came stamping out with his hat rammed over his nose, and managed to hoist himself into the saddle with the assistance of two scared ostlers. He gathered the bridle up, and turned to glare down upon Mr. Merriot. “I’ll settle with you later,” he promised ferociously, and setting spurs to his horse dashed off into the darkness.
Miss Merriot came out to lay a hand on her brother’s shoulder. “The dear gentleman!” she remarked. “Very well, child, but what next?”
II
Arrival of a Large Gentleman
Brother and sister went back into the coffee-room. As they entered by one door a little figure tiptoed in at the other, and stood poised on one toe as if for flight. “Has he gone?” breathed Miss Letitia.
It was Peter Merriot who went forward and took the lady’s hand. “Why, yes, child, gone for the moment,” he said, and led her to the fire.
She raised a pair of big pansy-brown eyes. “Oh, thank you, sir!” she said. “And you too, dear madam.”
Miss Merriot flushed slightly, whereat the humorous look came into Peter’s eye again. He looked down at Miss Letty gravely enough, and pulled a chair forward. “Sit down, madam, and let us have the story, if you please. I should desire to know how we may serve you.”
“You have served me,” vowed the lady, clasping her hands in her lap. “My story is all folly, sir—wicked folly rising out of the most dreadful persecution.”
“You shock me, madam.”
Miss Merriot came to the fire, and sat down beside the little lady, who promptly caught her hand and kissed it. “I don’t know what I should have done without you!” she said fervently. “For I had quite made up my mind I didn’t want to go to Gretna Green at all. You see, I had never seen him in his cups before. It was a terrible awakening. He became altered altogether once we were out of London, and—and I was afraid—a little.” She looked up blushing. “At home when I saw him he was so different, you see.”
“Do I understand, my dear, that you consented to elope with the gentleman?” inquired Miss Merriot.
The black curls were nodded vigorously. “I thought it would be so romantic,” sighed Letty. She brightened. “And so it was, when you hit him,” she added, turning to Peter. “It was positively marvellous!”
“Did you elope with him for the romance of it?” asked Mr. Merriot, amused.
“That, and because of my papa,” said Letty. “And because of being bored. Oh, have you never known, ma’am, what it is to be cooped up, and kept so close that you are ready to die of boredom?”
“In truth, I’ve led something of a rover’s life,” said Miss Merriot. “But continue, child.”
“I am an heiress,” announced Letty in tones the most lugubrious.
“My felicitations, ma’am,” bowed Mr. Merriot.
“Felicitations! I wish I were a pauper, sir! If a man comes to the house my papa must needs imagine he is after my money. He said that of Gregory Markham. And indeed I think he was right,” she said reflectively. “Ma’am, I think fathers are—are the veriest plague.”
“We have suffered, child,” said Miss Merriot.
“Then, ma’am, you will feel for me. My papa puts a hateful disagreeable woman to be my duenna, and I am so guarded and sheltered that there is nothing amusing ever happens to me, in spite of having been brought to town. Add to all that, ma’am, Sir Anthony Fanshawe, and you will see why I had come to the pitch of doing anything only to get away!”
“I feel we are to deplore Sir Anthony, Kate,” said Mr. Merriot.
“It is not that I am not fond of him,” Letty explained. “I have always been fond of him, but conceive, ma’am, being required to marry a man whom you have known all your life! A man, too, of his years and disposition!”
“I perceive in you a victim of parental tyranny, child,” said Miss Merriot. “We consign Sir Anthony to perdition.”
Letty giggled at that. “Oh, never, ma’am! ’Tis a model of prudence and the virtues! And thirty-five years old at the very least!”
Mr. Merriot flicked a speck of snuff from his sleeve.
“And to escape this greybeard, hence the young Adonis yonder, I suppose?”
Miss Letty hung her head. “He—he was not very young either, I suppose,” she confessed. “And I have been very silly, and wicked, I know. But indeed I thought him vastly more entertaining than Tony. You could not for your life imagine Tony excited, or in a scrape,
