ter's lodge, where the fellow had not
fastened his door that led into the court; and pistol in hand came upon
the terrified wretch, and bade him be silent. Then they asked him
(Esmond's head reeled, and he almost fell as he spoke) when Lord
Castlewood had arrived? He said on the previous evening, about eight of
the clock.--"And what then?"--His lordship supped with his sister.--"Did the
man wait?" Yes, he and my lady's maid both waited: the other servants made
the supper; and there was no wine, and they could give his lordship but
milk, at which he grumbled; and--and Madam Beatrix kept Miss Lucy always in
the room with her. And there being a bed across the court in the
chaplain's room, she had arranged my lord was to sleep there. Madam
Beatrix had come downstairs laughing with the maids, and had locked
herself in, and my lord had stood for a while talking to her through the
door, and she laughing at him. And then he paced the court awhile, and she
came again to the upper window; and my lord implored her to come down and
walk in the room; but she would not, and laughed at him again, and shut
the window; and so my lord uttering what seemed curses, but in a foreign
language, went to the chaplain's room to bed.

"Was this all?"--"All," the man swore upon his honour; "all as he hoped to
be saved.--Stop, there was one thing more. My lord, on arriving, and once
or twice during supper, did kiss his sister as was natural, and she kissed
him." At this Esmond ground his teeth with rage, and wellnigh throttled
the amazed miscreant who was speaking, whereas Castlewood, seizing hold of
his cousin's hand, burst into a great fit of laughter.

"If it amuses thee," says Esmond in French, "that your sister should be
exchanging of kisses with a stranger, I fear poor Beatrix will give thee
plenty of sport."--Esmond darkly thought, how Hamilton, Ashburnham, had
before been masters of those roses that the young prince's lips were now
feeding on. He sickened at that notion. Her cheek was desecrated, her
beauty tarnished; shame and honour stood between it and him. The love was
dead within him; had she a crown to bring him with her love, he felt that
both would degrade him.

But this wrath against Beatrix did not lessen the angry feelings of the
colonel against the man who had been the occasion if not the cause of the
evil. Frank sat down on a stone bench in the courtyard, and fairly fell
asleep, while Esmond paced up and down the court, debati