-
can you reckon? - when will he confess his wickedness? We separate ourselves
from a wretch like that.«
    »Pooh,« quoth the earl.
    »But you will go?« She fastened her arms round the arm nearest: »You or I!
Does it matter which? We are one. You speak for me; I should have been forced to
speak for you. You spare me the journey. I do not in truth suppose it would have
injured me; but I would not run one unnecessary risk.«
    Lord Romfrey sighed profoundly. He could not shake her off. How could he
refuse her?
    How on earth had it come about that suddenly he was expected to be the
person to go?
    She would not let him elude her; and her stained cheeks and her trembling on
his arm pleaded most pressingly and masteringly. It might be that she spoke with
a knowledge of her case. Positive it undoubtedly was that she meant to go if he
did not. Perhaps the hopes of his House hung on it. Having admitted that a wrong
had been done, he was not the man to leave it unamended; only he would have
chosen his time, and the manner. Since Nevil's illness, too, he had once or
twice been clouded with a little bit of regret at the recollection of poor
innocent old Shrapnel posted like a figure of total inebriation beside the
doorway of the dreadful sick-room.
    There had been women of the earl's illustrious House who would have given
their hands to the axe rather than conceal a stain and have to dread a scandal.
His Rosamund, after all, was of their pattern; even though she blew that
conscience she prattled of into trifles, and swelled them, as women of high
birth in this country, out of the clutches of the priests, do not do.
    She clung to him for his promise to go.
    He said: »Well, well.«
    »That means, you will,« said she.
    His not denying it passed for the affirmative.
    Then indeed she bloomed with love of him.
    »Yet do say yes,« she begged.
    »I 'll go, ma'am,« shouted the earl. »I 'll go, my love,« he said softly.
 

                                  Chapter LIII

                          The Apology to Dr. Shrapnel

»You and Nevil are so alike,« Lady Romfrey said to her lord, at some secret
resemblance she detected and dwelt on fondly, when the earl was on the point of
starting a second time for Bevisham to perform what she had