IN THE COURT OF KING’S BENCH.
The summer and autumn had gone by—an eventful season, for with it had
vanished from the stage of politics one who had played so dignified and
serious a part there. Southampton was dead, Clarendon disgraced and in
exile. The Nestor and the Ulysses of the Stuart epic had melted from
the scene. Down those stairs by which he had descended on his way to so
many a splendid festival, himself a statelier figure than Kings or
Princes, the Chancellor had gone to banishment and oblivion. “The lady”
had looked for the last time, a laughing Jezebel, from a palace window,
exultant at her enemy’s fall; and along the river that had carried such
tragic destinies eastward to be sealed in blood, Edward Hyde, Earl of
Clarendon, had drifted quietly out of the history he had helped to
make. The ballast of that grave intellect was flung overboard so that
the ship of fools might drift the faster.
But in Westminster Hall, upon this windy November morning, nobody
thought of Clarendon. The business of the day was interesting enough to
obliterate all considerations of yesterday. The young barristers, who
were learning their trade by listening to their betters, had been
shivering on their benches in the Common Pleas since nine o’clock, in
that chilly corner where every blast from the north or north-east swept
over the low wooden partition that enclosed the court, or cut through
the chinks in the panelling. The students and juniors were in their
usual places, sitting at the feet of their favourite Common-law Judge;
but the idlers who came for amusement, to saunter about the hall,
haggle for books with the second-hand dealers along the south wall, or
flirt with the milliners who kept stalls for bands and other legal
finery on the opposite side, or to listen on tiptoe, with an ear above
the panelled enclosure, to the quips and cranks or fierce rhetoric of a
famous advocate—these to-day gravitated with one accord towards the
south-west corner of the Hall, where, in the Court of King’s Bench,
Richard Revel, Baron Fareham, of Fareham, Hants, was to be tried by a
Buckinghamshire jury for abduction, with fraud, malice, and violence,
and for assault, with intent to murder.
The rank of the offender being high, and the indictment known to
involve tragic details of family history, there had been much talk of
the cause which was on the paper for to-day; and, as a natural
consequence, besides the habitual loungers and saunterers, gossips, and
book-buyers, there was a considerable sprinkling of persons of quality,
who perfumed the not too agreeable atmosphere with pulvilio and
Florentine iris powder, and the rustle of whose silks and brocades was
audible all over the Hall. Not often did such gowns sweep the dust
brought in by plebeian feet, nor such Venetian point collars rub
shoulders with the frowsy Norwich drugget worn by hireling perjurers or
starveling clerks. The modish world had come down upon the great Norman
Hall like a flock of pigeons, sleek, iridescent, all fuss and flutter;
and among these unaccustomed visitors there was prodigious impatience
for the trial to begin, and a struggle for good places that brought
into full play the primitive brutality which underlies the politeness
of the civillest people.
Lady Sarah Tewkesbury had risen betimes, and, in her anxiety to secure
a good place, had come out in her last night’s “head,” which somewhat
damaged edifice of ginger-coloured ringlets and Roman pearls was now
visible above the wooden partition of the King’s Bench to the eyes of
the commonalty in the hall below, her ladyship being accommodated with
a seat among the lawyers.
One of these was a young man in a shabby gown and rumpled wig, but with
a fair complexion and tolerable features—a stranger to that court, and
better known at Hicks’s Hall, and among city litigators, with whom he
had already a certain repute for keen wits and a plausible tongue—about
the youngest advocate at the English Bar, and by some people said to be
no barrister at all, but to have put on wig and gown two years ago at
Kingston Assizes and called himself to the Bar, and stayed there by
sheer audacity. This young gentleman, Jeffreys by name, having deserted
the city and possible briefs in order to hear the Fareham trial, was
inclined to resent being ousted by an obsequious official to make room
for Lady Sarah.
“Faith, one would suppose I was her ladyship’s footman and had been
keeping her seat for her,” he grumbled, as he reluctantly rose at the
Usher’s whispered request, and edged himself sulkily off to a corner
where he found just standing-room.
It was a very hard seat which Mr. Jeffreys had vacated, and her
ladyship, after sitting there over two hours, nodding asleep a good
part of the time, began to feel internal sinkings and flutterings which
presaged what she called a “swound,” and necessitated recourse to a
crystal flask of strong waters which she had prudently brought in her
muff. Other of Lady Fareham’s particular friends were expected—Sir
Ralph Masaroon, Lady Lucretia Topham, and more of the same kidney; and
even the volatile Rochester had deigned to express an interest in the
case.
“The man was mistaken in his métier,” he had told Lady Sarah, when the
scandal was discussed in her drawing-room. “The _rôle_ of seducer was
not within his means. Any one could see he was in love with the pale
sister-in-law by the manner in which he scowled at her; but it is not
every woman who can be subjugated by gloom and sullenness, though some
of ’em like us tragical. My method has been to laugh away resistance,
as my wife will acknowledge, who was the cruellest she I ever tackled,
and had baffled all her other servants. Indeed she must have been in
Butler’s eye when he wrote—
‘That old Pyg—what d’ye call him—malion
That cut his mistress out of stone,
Had not so hard a hearted one.’
Even Lady Rochester will admit I conquered without heroics,” upon which
her ladyship, late mistress Mallett, a beauty and a fortune, smiled
assent with all the complacency of a six-months’ bride. “To see a man
tried for an attempted abduction is a sight worth a year’s income,”
pursued Rochester. “I would travel a hundred miles to behold that rare
monster who has failed in his pursuit of one of your obliging sex!”
“Do you think us all so easily won?” asked Lady Sarah, piqued.
“Dear lady, I can but judge by experience. If obdurate to others you
have still been kind to me.”
Lady Sarah had nearly emptied her flask of Muscadine before Masaroon
elbowed his way to a seat beside her, from which he audaciously
dislodged a coffee-house acquaintance, an elderly lawyer upon whom
fortune had not smiled, with a condescending civility that was more
uncivil than absolute rudeness.
“We’ll share a bottle in Hell after the trial, mon ami,” he said; and
on seeing Lady Sarah’s look of horror, he hastened to explain that
Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, were the cant names of three taverns which
drove a roaring trade in strong drinks under the very roof of the Hall.
“The King’s Attorney-general is prosecuting,” answered Sir Ralph,
replying to a question from Lady Sarah, whose inquiries betrayed that
dense ignorance of legal technicalities common even to accomplished
women. “It is thought the lady’s father would have been glad for the
matter to be quashed, his fugitive daughter being restored to his
custody—albeit with a damaged character—and her elder sister having run
away from her husband.”
“I will not hear you slander my dearest friend,” protested Lady Sarah.
“Lady Fareham left her husband, and with good cause, as his
after-conduct showed. She did not run away from him.”
“Nay, she had doubtless the assistance of a carriage-and-six. She would
scarce foot it from London to Dover. And now she is leading grand train
in Paris, and has taken almost as commanding a place as her friend
Madame de Longueville, penitent and retired from service.”
“Hyacinth, under all her appearance of silliness, is a remarkably
clever woman,” said Lady Sarah, sententiously; “but, pray, Sir Ralph,
if Mistress Angela’s father has good reason for not prosecuting his
daughter’s lover—indeed I ever thought her an underhand hussy—why does
not Sir Denzil Warner—who I hear has been at death’s door—pursue him
for assault and battery?”
“Nay, is so still, madam. I question if he be yet out of danger. The
gentleman is a kind of puritanical Quixote, and has persistently
refused to swear an information against Fareham, whereby I doubt the
case will fall through, or his lordship get off with a fine of a
thousand or two. We have no longer the blessing of a Star Chamber, to
supply state needs out of sinners’ pockets, and mitigate general
taxation; but his Majesty’s Judges have a capacious stomach for fines,
and his Majesty has no objection to see his subjects’ misdemeanours
transmuted into coin.”
And now the business of the day began, the panelled enclosure being by
this time crowded almost to suffocation; and Lord Fareham was brought
into court.
He was plainly dressed in a dark grey suit, and looked ten years older
than when Lady Sarah had last seen him on his wife’s visiting day, an
uninterested member of that modish assembly. His eyes were deeper
sunken under the strongly marked brows. The threads of iron-grey in his
thick black hair were more conspicuous. He carried his head higher than
he had been accustomed to carry it, and the broad shoulders were no
longer bent in the Strafford stoop. The spectators could see that he
had braced himself for the ordeal, and would go through the day’s work
like a man of iron.
Proclamation was made for silence, and for information, if any person
could give any, concerning the misdemeanour and offence whereof the
defendant stood impeached; and the defendant was bid to look to his
challenges, and the Jury, being gentlemen of the county of Bucks, were
called, challenged, and sworn.
The demand for silence was so far obeyed that there followed a hush
within the enclosure of the court; but there was no cessation of the
buzz of voices and the tramp of footsteps in the hall, which mingled
sounds seemed like the rise and fall of a human ocean, as heard within
that panelled sanctuary.
The lawyers took snuff, shuffled on their seats, nudged each other and
whispered now and then, during the reading of the indictment; but among
Lady Fareham’s friends, and the quality in general, there was a
breathless silence and expectancy; and Lady Sarah would gladly have run
her hat-pin into a snuffy old Serjeant close beside her, who must needs
talk behind his hand to his pert junior.
To her ladyship’s unaccustomed ears that indictment, translated
literally from the Latin original, sounded terrible as an impeachment
in the subterranean halls of the Vehm Gericht, or in the most select
and secret council in the Venetian Doge’s Palace.
The indictment set forth “that the defendant, Richard Revel, Baron
Fareham, on the 4th day of July, in the 18th year of our sovereign lord
the King that now is, at the parish of St. Nicholas in the Vale, in the
county of Bucks, falsely, unlawfully, unjustly, and wickedly, by
unlawful and impure ways and means, contriving, practising, and
intending the final ruin and destruction of Mrs. Angela Kirkland,
unmarried, and one of the daughters of Sir John Kirkland, Knight—the
said lady then and there being under the custody, government, and
education of the said Sir John Kirkland, her father—he, the said
Richard Revel, Baron Fareham, then and there falsely, unlawfully,
devilishly, to fulfil, perfect, and bring to effect, his most wicked,
impious, and devilish intentions aforesaid—the said Richard Revel, Lord
Fareham (then and long before, and yet, being the husband of Mrs.
Hyacinth, another daughter of the said Sir John Kirkland, Knight, and
sister of the said Mrs. Angela), against all laws as well divine as
human, impiously, wickedly, impurely, and scandalously, did tempt,
invite, and solicit, and by false and lying pretences, oaths, and
affirmations, unlawfully, unjustly, and without the leave, and against
the will of the aforesaid Sir John Kirkland, Knight, in prosecution of
his most wicked intent aforesaid, did carry off the aforesaid Mrs.
Angela, she consenting in ignorance of his real purpose, about the hour
of twelve in the night-time of the said 4th day of July, in the year
aforesaid, and at the aforesaid, parish of St. Nicholas in the Vale, in
the county of Bucks aforesaid, out of the dwelling-house of the said
Sir John Kirkland, Knight, did take and convey to his own house in the
county of Oxford, and did then and there detain her by fraud, and did
there keep her hidden in a secret chamber known as the Priest’s Hole in
his own house aforesaid, at the hazard of her life, and did oppose her
rescue by force of arms, and with his sword, unlawfully, murderously,
and devilishly, and in the prosecution of his wicked purpose did stab
and wound Sir Denzil Warner, Baronet, the lady’s betrothed husband,
from which murderous assault the said Sir Denzil Warner, Baronet, still
lies in great sickness and danger of death, to the great displeasure of
Almighty God, to the ruin and destruction of the said Mrs. Angela
Kirkland, to the grief and sorrow of all her friends, and to the evil
and most pernicious example of all others in the like case offending;
and against the peace of our said sovereign lord the King, his crown
and dignity.”
The defendant having pleaded “Not guilty,” the Jury were charged in the
usual manner and with all solemnity.
“If you find him ‘guilty’ you are to say so; if you find him ‘not
guilty’ you are to say so, and no more, and hear your evidence.”
The Attorney-General confined himself to a brief out-line of the tragic
story, leaving all details to be developed by the witnesses, who were
allowed to give their evidence with colloquial freedom and
expansiveness.
The first witness was old Reuben, the steward from the Manor Moat, who
had not yet emerged from that mental maze in which he had found himself
upon beholding the change that had come to pass in the great city,
since the well-remembered winter of the King’s execution, and the long
frost, when he, Reuben, was last in London. His evidence was confused
and confusing; and he drew upon himself much good-natured ridicule from
the junior who opened the case. Out of various muddle-headed answers
and contradictory statements the facts of Lord Fareham’s unexpected
appearance at the Manor Moat, his account of his lady’s illness, and
his hurried departure, carrying the young madam with him on horseback,
were elicited, and the story of the ruse by which Mrs. Angela Kirkland
had been beguiled from her home was made clear to the comprehension of
a superior but rustic jury, more skilled in discriminating the points
of a horse, the qualities of an ox, or the capacity of a hound, than in
differentiating truth and falsehood in a story of wrong-doing.
Sir John Kirkland was the next witness, and the aspect of the man, the
noble grey head, fine features, and soldierly carriage, the
old-fashioned habit, the fashion of an age not long past, but almost
forgotten, enlisted the regard and compassion of Jury and audience.
“Let me perish if it is not a ghost from the civil wars!” whispered Sir
Ralph to Lady Sarah. “Mrs. Angela might well be romanesque and unlike
the rest of us, with such a father.”
A spasm of pain convulsed Fareham’s face for a moment, as the old
Cavalier stood up in the witness-box, towering above the Court in that
elevated position, and, after being sworn, took one swift survey of the
Bench and Jury, and then fixed his angry gaze upon the defendant, and
scarcely shifted it in the whole course of his examination.
“Now, Gentlemen of the Jury,” said the Attorney-General, “we shall tell
you what happened at Chilton Abbey, to which place the defendant, under
such fraudulent and lying pretences as you have heard of from the last
witness, conveyed the young lady. Sir John, I will ask you to acquaint
the Jury as fully and straightforwardly as you can with the
circumstances of your pursuit, and the defendant’s reception of you and
your intended son-in-law, Sir Denzil Warner, whose deposition we have
failed to obtain, but who could relate no facts which are not equally
within your own knowledge.”
“My words shall be straight and plain, sir, to denounce that
unchristian wretch whom, until this miserable business, I trusted as if
he had been my son. I came to my house, accompanied by my daughter’s
plighted husband, within an hour after that villain conveyed her away;
and on hearing my old servant’s story was quick to suspect treachery.
Nor was Sir Denzil backward in his fears, which were more instantaneous
than mine; and we waited only for the saddling of fresh horses, and
rousing a couple of grooms from their beds, fellows that I could trust
for prudence and courage, before we mounted again, following in that
wretch’s track. We heard of him and his victim at the Inn where they
changed horses, she going consentingly, believing she was being taken
in this haste to attend a dying sister.”
“And on arriving at the defendant’s house what was your reception?”
“He opposed our entrance, until he saw that we should batter down his
door if he shut us out longer. We were not admitted until after I had
sent one of my servants for the nearest Constable; and before we had
gained an entrance into his house he had contrived to put away my
daughter in a wretched hiding-place, planned for the concealment of
Romish Priests or other recusants and malefactors, and would have kept
her there, I believe, till she had perished in that foul cavern, rather
than restore her to her father and natural guardian.”
“That is false, and you know it!” cried Fareham. “My life is of less
account to me than a hair of her head. I hid her from you, to save her
from your tyranny, and the hateful marriage to which you would have
compelled her.”
“Liar! Impudent, barbarous liar!” roared the old Knight, with his right
arm raised, and his body half out of the box, as if he would have
assaulted the defendant. “Sir John,” said the Judge, “I would be very
loath to deal otherwise than becomes me with a person of your quality;
but, indeed, this is not so handsome, and we must desire you to be
calm.”
“When I remember his infamy, and that vile assumption of my daughter’s
passion for him, which he showed in every word and act of that
miserable scene.”
He went on to relate the searching of the house, and Warner’s happy
inspiration, by which Angela’s hiding-place was discovered, and she
rescued in a fainting condition. He described the defendant’s audacious
attempt to convey her to the coach which stood ready for her abduction,
and his violence in opposing her rescue, and the fight which had
well-nigh resulted in Warner’s death.
When Sir John’s story was finished the defendant’s advocate, who had
declined to question the old butler, rose to cross-examine this more
important witness.
“In your tracing of the defendant’s journey between your house and
Chilton you heard of no outcries of resistance upon your daughter’s
side?”
“No, sir. She went willingly, under a delusion.”
“And do you think now, sir, as a man of the world, and with some
knowledge of women, that your daughter was so easily hoodwinked; she
having seen her sister, Lady Fareham, so shortly before, in good health
and spirits?”
“Lady Fareham did not appear in good health when she was last at the
Manor, and her sister was already uneasy about her.”
“But not so uneasy as to believe her dying, and that it was needful to
ride to her helter-skelter in the night-time. Do you not think, sir,
that the young lady, who was so quick to comply with his lordship’s
summons, and bustled up and was in the saddle ten minutes after he
entered the house, and was willing to got without her own woman, or any
preparation for travel, had a strong inclination for the journey, and a
great kindness for the gentleman who solicited her company?”
“Has that barbarous wretch set you on to slander the lady whose ruin he
sought, sir?” asked the Knight, pallid with the white heat of
indignation.
“Nay, Sir John, I am no slanderer; but I want the Jury to understand
the sentiments and passions which are the springs of action here, and
to bear in mind that the case they are hearing is a love story, and
they can only come at the truth by remembering their own experience as
lovers—”
The deep and angry tones of his client interrupted the silvery-tongued
Counsellor.
“If you think to help me, sir, by traducing the lady, I repudiate your
advocacy.”
“My lord, you are not allowed to give evidence or to interrupt the
Court. You have pleaded not guilty, and it is my duty to demonstrate
your innocence. Come, Sir John, do you not know that his lordship’s
unhappy passion for his sister-in-law was shared by the subject of it;
and that she for a long time opposed all your efforts to bring about a
proper alliance for her, solely guided and influenced by this secret
passion?”
“I know no such thing.”
“Do I understand, then, that from the time of your first proposals she
was willing to marry Sir Denzil Warner?”
“She was not willing.”
“I would have wagered as much. Did you fathom her reason for declining
so proper an alliance?”
“I did not trouble myself about her reasons. I knew that time would
wear them away.”
“And I doubt you trusted to a father’s authority?”
“No, sir. I promised my daughter that I would not force her
inclinations.”
“But you used all methods of persuasion. How long was it before July
the 4th that Mrs. Angela consented to marry Sir Denzil?”
“I cannot be over precise upon that point. I have no record of the
date.”
“But you have the faculty of memory, sir; and this is a point which a
father would not easily forget.”
“It may have been a fortnight before.”
“And until that time the lady was unwilling?”
“Yes.”
“She refused positively to accept the match you urged upon her?”
“She refused.”
“And finally consented, I will wager, with marked reluctance?”
“No, sir, there was no reluctance. She came to me of her own accord,
and surprised me by her submission.”
“That will do, Sir John. You can stand down. I shall now proceed to
call a witness who will convince the Jury of my client’s innocence upon
the first and chief count in the indictment, abduction with fraud and
violence. I shall tell you by the lips of my witness, that if he took
the lady away from her home, she being of full age, she went freely
consenting, and with knowledge of his purpose.”
“Lies—foul lies!” cried the old Cavalier, almost strangled with
passion.
He plucked at the knot of his cravat, trying to loosen it, feeling
himself threatened with apoplexy.
“Call Mistress Angela Kirkland,” said the Serjeant, in strong steady
tones that contrasted with the indignant father’s hoarse and gasping
utterance.
“S’life! the business becomes every moment more interesting,” whispered
Lady Sarah. “Will he make that sly slut own her misconduct in open
court?”
“If she blush at her slip from virtue, it will be a new sensation in a
London law-court to see the colour of shame,” replied Sir Ralph, behind
his perfumed glove; “but I warrant she’ll carry matters with a high
hand, and feel herself every inch a heroine.”
Angela came into the court attended by her waiting-woman, who remained
near the entrance, amid the close-packed crowd of lawyers and
onlookers, while her mistress quietly followed the official who
conducted her to the witness-box.
She was dressed in black, and her countenance under her neat black hood
looked scarcely less white than her lawn neckerchief; but she stood
erect and unfaltering in that conspicuous station, and met the eyes of
her interrogator with an untroubled gaze. When her lips had touched the
dirty little book, greasy with the kisses of innumerable perjurers, the
Serjeant began to question her in a tone of odious familiarity.
“Now, my dear young lady, here is a gentleman’s liberty, and perhaps
his life, hanging on the breath of those pretty lips; so I want you to
answer a few plain questions with as plain speech as you can command,
remembering that you are to tell us the truth, and the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth. Come, now, dear miss, when you left your
father’s house on the night of July 4, in this present year, in Lord
Fareham’s company, did you go with him of your own free will, and with
a knowledge of his purpose?”
“I knew that he loved me.”
A heart-breaking groan from Sir John Kirkland was hushed down by an
usher of the court.
“You knew that he loved you, and that he designed to carry you beyond
seas?”
“Yes.”
“And you were willing to leave your father’s custody and go with the
defendant as his paramour?”
There was a pause, and the white cheek crimsoned, and the heavy eyelids
fell over agonised eyes.
“I went willingly—because I loved him;” and then with a sudden burst of
passion, “I would have died for him, or lived for him. It mattered not
which.”
“And she has lied for him—has sworn to a lie—and that to her own
dishonour!” cried Sir John, beside himself; whereupon he was sternly
bidden to keep silence.
There was no intention that this little Buckinghamshire gentleman
should be indulged, to the injury of a person of Lord Fareham’s wealth
and consequence. The favour of the Bench obviously leant towards the
defendant.
Fareham’s deep tones startled the audience.
“In truth, your Honour, the young lady has belied herself in order to
help me,” he said. “I cannot accept acquittal at the cost of her good
name.”
“Your lordship has pleaded not guilty.”
“And his lordship’s chivalry would revoke that plea,” cried the
Counsel; “this is most irregular. I must beg that the Bench do order
the defendant to keep silence. The witness can stand down.”
Angela descended from the witness-box falteringly, and would perhaps
have fallen but for her father’s strong grasp, which clutched her arm
as she reached the last step.
He dragged her out of the close-packed court, and into the open Hall.
“Wanton!” he hissed in her ear, “shameless wanton!”
She answered nothing; but stood where he held her, with wild eyes
looking out of a white, rigid countenance. She had done what she had
come there to do. Persuaded by Fareham’s attorney, who had waited upon
her at her lodgings when Sir John was out of the way, she had made her
ill-considered attempt to save the man she loved, ignorant of the
extent of his danger, exaggerating the potential severity of his
punishment, in the illimitable fear of a woman for the safety of the
being she loves. And now she cared nothing what became of her, cared
little even for her father’s anger or distress. There was always the
Convent, last refuge of sin or sorrow, which meant the annihilation of
the individual, and where the world’s praise or blame had no influence.
Her woman fussed about her with a bottle of strong essence, and Sir
John dragged rather than led her along the Hall, to the great door
where the coach that had carried her from his London lodgings was in
waiting. He saw her seated, with her woman beside her, supporting her,
gave the coachman his orders, and then went hastily back to the Court
of King’s Bench.
The Court was rising; the Jury, without leaving their seats, had
pronounced the defendant guilty of a misdemeanour, not in conveying Sir
John Kirkland’s daughter away from her home, to which act she had
avowed herself a consenting party; but in detaining her in his house
with violence, and in opposition to her father and proper guardian. The
Lord Chief Justice expressed his satisfaction at this verdict, and
after expatiating with pious horror upon the evil consequences of an
ungovernable passion, a guilty, soul-destroying love, a direct
inspiration of Satan, sentenced the defendant to pay a fine of ten
thousand pounds, upon the payment of which sum he would be set at
liberty.
The old Cavalier heard the brief sermon and the sentence, which seemed
to him of all punishments the most futile. He had hoped to see his
son-in-law sent to the Plantations for life; had been angry at the
thought that he would escape the gallows; and for sole penalty the
seducer was sentenced to forfeit less than a year’s income. How corrupt
and venal was a bench that made the law of the land a nullity when a
great personage was the law-breaker!
He flung himself in the defendant’s way as he left the court, and
struck him across the breast with the flat of his sword.
“An unarmed man, Sir John! Is that your old-world chivalry?” Fareham
asked, quietly.
A crowd was round them and swords were drawn before the officer could
interfere. There were friends of Fareham’s in the court, and two of his
gentlemen; and Sir John, who was alone, might have been seriously hurt
before the authorities could put down the tumult, had not his
son-in-law protected him.
“Sheath your swords, if you love me!” he exclaimed, flinging himself in
front of Sir John. “I would not have the slightest violence offered to
this gentleman.”
“And I would kill you if I had the chance!” cried Sir John; “that is
the difference between us. I keep no measures with the man who ruined
my daughter.”
“Your daughter is as spotless a saint as the day she left her Convent,
and you are a blatant old fool to traduce her,” said Fareham,
exasperated, as the Usher led him away.
His detention was no more than a formality; and as he had been
previously allowed his liberty upon bail, he was now permitted to
return to his own house, where by an order upon his banker he paid the
fine, and was henceforward a free man.
The first use he made of his freedom was to rush to Sir John’s
lodgings, only to hear that the Cavalier, with his daughter and two
servants, had left half an hour earlier in a coach-and-four for
Buckinghamshire. The people at the lodgings did not know which road
they had taken, or at what Inn they were to lie on the way.
“Well, there will be a better chance of seeing her at the Manor than in
London,” Fareham thought; “he cannot keep so close a watch upon her
there as in the narrow space of town lodgings.”