“I heard a carriage drive up, my lord!” explained the butler, staring at Letty.
“Yes, Lady Letty decided after all she would not spend the night in Bryanston Square,” said Cardross ironically. “You may come into the book-room, both of you.” He walked to the door and held it wide. Across the room Nell’s eyes met his, a startled question in them. “Giles, I thought I heard—”
“You did, my love. Can you conceive of anything more delightful? Dear little Letty is once more in our midst!”
“I hate you!” said Letty passionately, and burst into tears.
“Letty! Oh, Letty, thank God you’ve come back!” cried Nell, hurrying forward.
“I wish I hadn’t! I wish I were dead!” sobbed Letty.
“No, no, you mustn’t say that!” Nell told her, putting an arm round her, and stretching out her other hand to Mr. Allandale. “Mr. Allandale, how glad I am that I wasn’t mistaken in you! I couldn’t think it possible that you would do such an improper thing as to elope with her!”
He kissed her hand punctiliously, and said: “I wish that I could find the words to express to your ladyship the sense of obligation I feel. But when I consider the circumstances, and what cause you have had (the whole truth not being known to you) to think me infamous, I am rendered tongue-tied.”
“Not noticeably,” said Cardross dryly.
Nell bit her lip, and drew Letty to the sofa. “Come, love, sit down beside me, and try to compose yourself!” She saw how anxiously Mr. Allandale was watching Letty, and smiled at him reassuringly. “She will be better directly: don’t pay any heed to her!”
He looked grateful, but turned with a resolute air to Cardross. “Sir, I have a duty to discharge. I speak on behalf of Lady Letitia, and I shall be brief, merely imploring you to remember that she is young, and in the greatest distress, and has thrown herself upon your mercy. What I have to disclose to you cannot but shock you deeply. You do not yet know the worst, and it is my painful duty to inform you of it.”
“Oh, yes, I do!” replied Cardross. “You are about to tell me that Letty stole the Cardross necklace.”
Letty raised her head from Nell’s shoulder. “It wasn’t stealing! It wasn’t!” she declared. “It didn’t belong to Nell, and she didn’t even like it! It belonged to the family, and so it was just as much mine as yours, Giles!”
“My love, you are forgetting that I have several times explained to you that that is not so,” said Mr. Allandale gravely.
“Yes, but it is! And anyway Giles won’t let me have my fortune, so what else could I do?”
Mr. Allandale looked pained, but apparently decided that the moment was not ripe for argument. Drawing a package from his pocket, he laid it on the table before him, and said: “That is the sum the necklace realized, my lord. Had I been able, I would have done my utmost to recover the necklace itself. It was not in my power, however: I have not been at liberty to repair to the jeweller to whom it was sold. I will furnish your lordship with—”
“Let me set your mind at rest!” Cardross interrupted. “The jeweller brought it to me earlier today, and I have already redeemed it.”
“Sir, you have removed, a weight from my mind!” said Mr. Allandale earnestly.
“Yes, I expect I have,” agreed Cardross. “I wish you will satisfy the curiosity in mine! Was it the discovery that your bride had stolen the necklace which made you abandon your flight to Gretna Green? At what stage did you turn back?”
“There was no such flight, my lord.”
“No, of course not!” Nell said. “But—where did you go to, Mr. Allandale?”
“I was guilty of practicing deception,” he said heavily. “I need not, I hope, assure you that such a course was of the utmost repugnance to me. To deceive one so dear to me, and one who, moreover, placed the most implicit trust in my integrity, was more painful than I can describe. But when I found that no words of mine could avail to persuade my darling to return to her home, when I saw her in such agony of grief and despair—”
“Yes, I’ve seen Letty in hysterics,” said Cardross. “You have no need to describe the scene to me! I pity you sincerely. What, in fact, did you do?”
“Fearing that if I compelled her to return to this house she might put a period to her existence, I agreed to fly with her to the Border,” said Mr. Allandale. “She believed that we were on our way north, but it was not so. I did not carry her to Gretna Green, but to Wimbledon.”
There was a moment’s astonished silence. “To Wimbledon!” said Cardross, in a voice that shook. “I expect you had an excellent reason for your choice.”
“Why, to be sure he had!” exclaimed Nell, bestowing a warm, smile upon Mr. Allandale. “You mean you took her to your mother’s house! How very wise of you!”
He bowed. “It seemed to me, ma’am, the only course open to me. In my mother’s judgment I could repose complete confidence, for her understanding is superior, her mind of an elevated order, and her firm yet tender command over my sisters such as encouraged me to hope that over my darling also her influence would prevail.”
“And we perceive that it did!” said Cardross. “My dear Allandale, why have I never been privileged to meet your mother?”
“I would like to kill you!” choked Letty.
“My mother, sir, seldom goes into society,” said Mr. Allandale stiffly.
“But I hope she may be persuaded to receive me, nevertheless.”
“I am at a loss to understand your lordship,” said Mr. Allandale, more stiffly yet. “I apprehend, however, that you are in funning humour!”
“No, I am not funning,” Cardross replied. “Oblige me by telling me, in all frankness, whether or not my sister’s want of conduct, her excessive sensibility, and the unscrupulous means she does not hesitate to use to attain her ends have convinced you that she is totally unfitted to be your wife?”
“Giles, don’t!” begged Nell, as Letty broke into renewed weeping.
“Sir,” said Mr. Allandale, very pale, but steadily meeting Cardross’s eyes, “I do not attempt to condone her faults, though I can perceive excuses for them, but I love her, and must always do so, whatever she is, or whatever she does.”
Letty looked up, her tears arrested, awe in her face. “Jeremy!” she said, “Oh, Jeremy!”
Cardross turned his head. “You are not worthy of that, Letty.”
“No,” she said forlornly. “I know I am not, but—oh, I wish I were!”
He smiled wryly. “Well, I daresay there may be hope for you. You had better marry her, Allandale.”
It seemed for several moments as though neither of the interested parties could believe that they had heard him correctly. It was Letty who found her voice first. “Giles—do you mean now? Before he sails?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“Oh, my dearest brother, how kind you are!” cried Letty, flying up off the sofa and casting herself upon his chest. “Pray forgive me for saying horrid things to you! I didn’t mean them! Oh, how happy I am! Oh, Jeremy, I promise I will never do anything you don’t like!”
“Sir,” said Mr. Allandale, “I do not know how to convey to you my sense of your generosity, my gratitude, the—”
“Then don’t try!” said Cardross. “You are a very estimable young man, but I should like you so much more if you would refrain from addressing me in flowing periods! I am going to send you away now, but you may come to see me tomorrow, at noon, if that should be convenient to you, when I will arrange the marriage settlements with you. You may escort him to the front door, Letty, and after you have bidden him good-night, you had better go to bed.”