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“Have you killed him?” she asked, in a hushed voice.

“O Lord, no!” I protested. “The life of a peer’s son is too valuable a matter; he will be little the worse for it in a week.”

“The dog!” cries she, overcome with pardonable indignation at the affront which the misguided nobleman had put upon her; and afterward, with a ferocity the more astounding in an individual whose demeanor was by ordinary of an aspect so amiable and so engaging, she said, “Oh, the lewd thieving dog!”

“My adorable Miss Allonby,” said I, “do not, I pray you, thus slander the canine species! Meanwhile, permit me to remind you that ’tis inexpedient to loiter in these parts, for the parson will presently be at hand; and if it be to inter rather than to marry Lord Humphrey–well, after all, the peerage is a populous estate! But, either way, time presses.”

“Come!” said she, and took my arm; and together we went down-stairs and into the street.

IV

On the way homeward she spoke never a word. Vanringham had made a hasty flitting when my Lord’s people arrived, so that we saw nothing of him. But when we had come safely to Lady Allonby’s villa, Dorothy began to laugh.

“Captain Audaine,” says she, in a wearied and scornful voice, “I know that the hour is very late, yet there are certain matters to be settled between as which will, I think, scarcely admit of delay. I pray you, then, grant me ten minutes’ conversation.”

She had known me all along, you see. Trust the dullest woman to play Oedipus when love sets the riddle. So there was nothing to do save clap my mask into my pocket and follow her, sheepishly enough, toward one of the salons, where at Dorothy’s solicitation a gaping footman made a light for us.

She left me there to kick my heels through a solitude of some moments’ extent. But in a while my dear mistress came into the room, with her arms full of trinkets and knick-knacks, which she flung upon a table.

“Here’s your ring, Captain Audaine,” says she, and drew it from her finger. “I did not wear it long, did I? And here’s the miniature you gave me, too. I used to kiss it every night, you know. And here’s a flower you dropped at Lady Pevensey’s. I picked it up–oh, very secretly!–because you had worn it, you understand. And here’s–“

But at this point she fairly broke down; and she cast her round white arms about the heap of trinkets, and strained them close to her, and bowed her imperious golden head above them in anguish.

“Oh, how I loved you–how I loved you!” she sobbed. “And all the while you were only a common thief!”

“Dorothy–!” I pleaded.

“You shame me–you shame me past utterance!” she cried, in a storm of mingled tears and laughter. “Here’s this bold Captain Audaine, who comes to Tunbridge from nobody knows where, and wins a maid’s love, and proves in the end a beggarly house-breaker! Mr. Garrick might make a mirthful comedy of this, might he not?” Then she rose to her feet very stiffly. “Take your gifts, Mr. Thief,” says she, pointing,–“take them. And for God’s sake let me not see you again!”

So I was forced to make a clean breast of it.

“Dorothy,” said I, “ken ye the rhyme to porringer?” But she only stared at me through unshed tears.

Presently, though, I hummed over the old song:

“Ken ye the rhyme to porringer?
Ken ye the rhyme to porringer?
King James the Seventh had ae daughter,
And he gave her to an Oranger.

“And the Oranger filched his crown,” said I, “and drove King James–God bless him!–out of his kingdom. This was a while and a half ago, my dear; but Dutch William left the stolen crown to Anne, and Anne, in turn, left it to German George. So that now the Elector of Hanover reigns at St. James’s, while the true King’s son must skulk in France, with never a roof to shelter him. And there are certain gentlemen, Dorothy, who do not consider that this is right.”