



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Red Derelict
By Bertram Mitford
Published by Methuen and Co. London.
This edition dated 1904.
The Red Derelict, by Bertram Mitford.

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THE RED DERELICT, BY BERTRAM MITFORD.



CHAPTER ONE.

THE EPISODE OF THE BRINDLED GNU.

"Mine!"

The word was breathed rather than uttered, and its intonation conveyed a
sense of the most perfect, even ecstatic, contentment.  The vivid green
of early summer woods piled as it were in great cloud masses to the
clear, unbroken blue, rolling up from the sheen and glory of golden seas
of buttercups which flooded every rich meadow surface.  Hawthorn hedges
distilled their sweetness from snowy clusters crowding each other in
their profusion, a busy working ground for myriad bees whose murmur made
music in low waves of tone upon the sweet evening glow.  And yonder,
behind him who is contemplating all this, the slant of the westering sun
touches the tall chimney stalks of the old house, just visible among
masses of feathery elms loud with cawing clamour from black armies of
homing rooks.  Again the glance swept round upon this wealth of English
summer loveliness and again the uttered thought, with all its original
exaltation, escaped the lips.

"Mine!"

Wagram Gerard Wagram strolled leisurely on, drinking in the golden glory
of the surroundings as though suffering it to saturate his whole being.
As for the second time he half-unconsciously enunciated that single
possessive it was with almost a misgiving, an uncomfortable stirring as
of unreality.  Would he awaken directly, as he had more than once
awakened before, to find this vision of Paradise, as it were, dispelled
in the cold and sunless grey of a mere existence, blank alike of aim or
prospect--illusions dead, life all behind, in front--nothing?

With these conditions he was well acquainted--only too well.  The seamy
side of life had indeed been his--failure, straitened means,
disappointment in every form, and worse.  Years of bitter and
heart-wearing experiences had planted the iron in his soul--but this was
all over now, never to return.  To him, suddenly, startling in its
unexpectedness, had come the change, and with it, peace.

A perfect chorus of bird harmony filled the air.  Thrushes innumerable
poured forth their song, whose sweet and liquid notes gurgled upon the
ear as though through organ pipes.  Robins, too, and blackbirds were not
slow to join in, and then the soft amorous coo of wood-pigeons, and
through all--thrown as it were from copse to copse--the blithe and
gladsome shout of answering cuckoos.

Wagram opened a gate noiselessly, and with equally noiseless tread moved
along one of the "rides" of a wood.  On his shoulder was a rabbit
rifle--one of some power and driving capacity--with which he was wont to
practise long shots at outlying but uncommonly suspicious and wideawake
Bunny.  Things rustled in the undergrowth and brambles on either side,
as though stealthily creeping away.  A slight stirring of the grass
caught his eye, and, as he bent over it, an adder contracted itself into
a letter S, with its heart-shaped head somewhat lifted, alert,
defensive.  He raised the rifle so as to bring down the butt upon the
snake--then seemed to think better of it.

"Poor little brute.  The chances are ten thousand to one against it ever
damaging anybody in a place like this, and those chances it can have the
benefit of."

He touched it with the muzzle of the gun, amused by the impotent wrath
wherewith the small reptile struck at the cold iron.  Then he went on
his way.

He reached a gate and peered over.  Two or three rabbits were out
feeding, but they darted like lightning into cover before he had time so
much as to raise the piece.  Passing out of the gate he crossed the open
meadow.

In front a gleam of water, and beyond it the skipping forms of young
lambs, whose shrill bleat harmonised with the multitudinous bird voices,
and the green loveliness of the picture.  Leaning lazily on the parapet
of an old stone bridge which spanned the river, Wagram watched the
ripple here and there of a rising trout, or the perky flirtings of a
pair of water-ouzels, whose nest clung, excrescence-like, against one of
the stone piers.  Away down stream the roof of a picturesque old mill,
its wheel for the nonce still and silent, and beyond, pointing above
more woods, the spire of a distant church.

Again that well-nigh ecstatic sense of possession--of ownership--came
over him, and now, giving himself up to it, he fairly revelled in it.
The utter solitude of the spot constituted, in his eyes, one of its
greatest charms.  He could wander at will without meeting a human being,
and though here the bridge carried on a public thoroughfare it was a
lonely road at any time.  But one side of such solitude was that
thoughts of the past would arise, would obtrude, and such he steadily
put from him.  For he hated the past.  Not one day of it would he
willingly live over again--to no single incident of it would he
willingly let his mind revert.  It was a very nightmare.

Leaving the bridge he strolled up the tree-shaded road intending to
return home.  But no chances did he get of practising marksmanship, for
the rabbits seemed unaccountably shy.  Ah--at last.  There was one.
Nearly a hundred yards' range, too.  Yes, it would do.

But before he could draw trigger he lowered the piece and threw up his
head listening.  A sound--a strange sound--had caught his ear.  Yet it
was not so much the nature of the sound, as the quarter from which it
came that had startled him.  No further thought of the rabbit now, as he
listened for its repetition.

It came--louder, nearer, this time--a strange, harsh, raucous bellow.
Again and again he heard it, each time nearer still.  And with it now
blended another sound--a loud shrill scream for help.

Wagram's blood thrilled as already he foresaw a tragedy.  It happened
that a portion of the park was set apart for several varieties of the
larger African antelopes, which they were trying to acclimatise, and one
of these must, by some means or other, have escaped from its paddock.

It is a fact that the shyest and wariest of wild creatures in their
natural state, when captured and placed in confinement, as they become
accustomed to the sight of the human form divine, soon develop an
aggressive ferocity in exactly opposite proportion to their former
shyness.  No better instance is furnished of familiarity thus breeding
contempt than in the case of the male ostrich.  In his wild state the
sky-line is hardly a sufficiently respectable distance for him to keep
between you and him--incidentally he never does hide his head in the
sand, a ridiculous fable probably originating with the old Portuguese
explorers, in whom the waggishly disposed natives would find fair game.
"Camped off" or enclosed, there is no limit to his absolutely fearless
truculence.  Even the graceful little springbok, half tamed, and shut up
alone in a paddock, we have known to give a full-grown man all the rough
and tumble he wants before getting out of that paddock unscathed.  And
these, we repeat, were of the largest variety of antelope, and now here
was one of them at large and pursuing somebody--from the scream,
evidently a woman.

Even while thinking, Wagram was at the same time acting, for he had
rushed forward and literally torn himself through a high thick hedge
which interposed between himself and what was transpiring.  And this is
what he saw.

A girl on a bicycle was skimming the broad white road which banded the
level sward.  Close in pursuit coursed a strange looking beast, utterly
out of keeping with the peaceful and conventional beauty of an English
park--a slate- beast, with the head of an exaggerated he-goat,
and bearded withal; the horns of a miniature buffalo, the mane of a
horse and almost the tail of one.  It was in fact a fair specimen of the
brindled gnu, commonly known as the blue wildebeeste.

Fortunately the creature did not seem able to make up its mind to
charge; for now it would range up alongside of the bicycle and its
rider, prancing and whisking around, and uttering its raucous bellow,
then it would drop back, and rush forward again with horns lowered, to
pull up and proceed to play the fool as before.  All this Wagram took
in, as he hurried up, and, taking it in, knew the peril to be great and
dual.  If the beast were to charge home, why then--those meat-hook like
horns would do their deadly work in a moment.  If the rider kept up, or
increased her pace any further to speak of, why then this road ended in
a gate giving admission to the high road, and this gate was shut.  There
was only one thing to be done, and he did it.

He rushed towards this strange chase, shouting furiously, even
grotesquely, anything to draw the attention of the dangerous brute.  But
at that moment, whether the girl had lost her head, or was as startled
at this new diversion as her pursuer ought to have been, the bicycle
wheel managed to get into a dry rut, skidded, and shot the rider clean
off on to the turf.  A half-strangled scream went up, and she lay still.

It is possible that the accident saved the situation so far as she was
concerned, for the gnu held straight on and, lowering his head, with a
savage drive sent his horns clean through the fabric of the machine
lying in the road, then throwing up his head flung the shattered
fragments of metal whirling about in every direction, but the remainder,
entangled in the horns, still hung about his forehead and eyes.

Wagram summed up the peril in a flash.  There lay the girl, helpless if
not unconscious, the gate a quarter of a mile away--even the hedge he
had come through considerably over a hundred yards.  Not so much as a
tree was there to dodge behind, and there was the infuriated beast
shaking its head and bellowing savagely in frantic attempts to disengage
itself of the clinging remains of the bicycle.  The rifle, he decided,
was of no use; the bullet, too diminutive to kill or disable, would only
avail to madden the animal still more.  And even then it succeeded in
flinging the last remnant of the shattered machine from its horns.  It
stood for a second, staring, snorting, stamping its hoofs, then charged.

Wagram levelled the piece and pressed the trigger.  The hammer fell with
a mere click, and as he remembered how he had fired in the air while
rushing to the rescue, in the hope that the report might scare the
beast, the shock of the onrush sent him to earth, knocking the weapon
from his grasp.

For a second he lay, half stunned.  Fortunately, he had managed to dodge
partially aside so as to escape the full shock, and the impetus had
carried his assailant on a little way.  Would the brute leave them, he
wondered, if they both lay still.  But no.  It faced round, stamped,
shook its head, bellowed, then came on again--this time straight for the
prostrate girl.

Wagram rose to his feet with a shout--a loud, pealing, quavering shout.
He had no clear idea as to what he was going to do, but the first thing
was to get between the maddened beast and its intended victim.

Even at that moment, so strange are the workings of the human mind,
there flashed across Wagram's brain the irony of it all.  The ecstasy of
possession had culminated thus: that a sudden and violent death should
overtake him in the midst of his possessions, and through the agency of
one of them.  The gnu, diverted from its original purpose, or preferring
an erect enemy to a recumbent one, once more charged him.  Then he
literally "took the bull by the horns" and gripped them as in a vice.
Throwing up its head the struggling, pushing beast strove to tear itself
free, but those sinewy hands held on.  Then it reared on its hind legs,
and tall man as he was, Wagram felt himself pulled off the ground.
Though considerably past his first youth, he was wiry and hard of
condition, and still he held on, but it could not continue.  He must
relax his grip, then he would be gored, trampled, mangled out of all
recognition.  Already one of the pointed hoofs, pawing wildly downward,
had ripped his waistcoat open, gashing the skin, when--he was
somersaulting through the air, to fall heavily half-a-dozen yards away,
at the same time that the sharp crack of firearms almost at his very ear
seemed to point to a miracle in his swiftly revolving brain.

He raised his head.  His late enemy was lying on the turf, a faint
quiver shuddering through its frame, and, standing contemplating it,
erect, unhurt, the form of her he had nearly lost his life to rescue,
and in her hand, the smoke still curling from the muzzle, a rifle--his
rifle.



CHAPTER TWO.

AFTERWARDS.

"How did you do it?" he asked, panting violently after his recent
exertion and shock.  "How?"

"I saw the cartridges fall out of your pocket while you fought the
brute," she answered.  "That suggested it.  I put one in the rifle and
aimed just behind the shoulder, as I had read of people doing when
shooting things of that sort.  Thank Heaven it was the right aim.  Do
you know, I felt it would be--knew it somehow."

She spoke quickly, excitedly, her breast heaving, and the colour
mantling in her cheeks, as she turned her large eyes upon his face.

"It was splendid--splendid," he repeated, rising, though somewhat
stiffly, for he was very bruised and shaken.

"I don't know about that," she answered with a laugh.  "I expect the old
Squire will be of a different opinion.  Why I--I mean you and I between
us--have killed one of his African animals.  And they say he's no end
proud of them."

"Yes, and you have saved my life."

"Have I?  I rather think the boot's on the wrong foot," she answered.
"Where would I have been with that beast chevying me if you hadn't come
on the scene.  But--oh, Mr Wagram, are you much hurt?  I was
forgetting."

"No, I am not hurt, beyond a bit of a shaking-up.  And you?"

"Same here.  I suppose the excitement and unexpectedness of the toss
saved me.  I was in an awful funk, though--er--I mean I was awfully
scared.  You see it was all so unexpected.  I didn't know these things
ever attacked people."

"They are apt to be dangerous in a half-tame condition, but ours are
shut up in a separate part of the park.  I have yet to find out how this
one got loose."

"What would I have done if you hadn't come up?" she repeated.  "I should
certainly have been killed."

Wagram thought that such would very likely have been the case, but he
answered:

"I think you might have been considerably injured.  You see, when you
got to the gate over there, you would have had to slow down and jump
off."

"Rather.  And--oh, my poor bike!  It's past praying for, utterly."

"Well, it's past mending, that's certain.  But--er--of course, you must
allow us to make good the loss.  As a matter of hard law you need have
no scruple about this.  It was destroyed on our property by an animal
belonging to us, and on a public road."

"A public road!" she echoed.  "Then I was not trespassing?"

"No.  This is a right-of-way, though I don't mind admitting that we have
often wished it wasn't," he added with a smile.

Inwardly he was puzzling as to who this girl could be.  She was aware of
his own identity, for she had addressed him by name; but he was
absolutely convinced he had never seen her before.  She was a handsome
girl, too, very handsome.  She had a clear, brunette skin, through which
the colour would mantle as she grew animated, fine eyes of a light
hazel, and an exceedingly attractive smile.  In build she was square
shouldered and of full outline, and though not exactly tall was of a
good height for a woman.  She was plainly dressed, but well, in a light
blouse and grey bicycle skirt, and her manner was natural and
unaffected.  Yet with all these attractions Wagram decided that she was
just not quite in the same social scale.  Who could she be?

"Oh, but, Mr Wagram, I'm sure you must be hurt," she broke in, as he
rose from dusting down her bicycle skirt--she had sustained wonderfully
little damage, even outwardly, from her fall.  "Why, what is this?"
catching sight of his ripped waistcoat.  "Blood, too!  Good heavens!
Did it strike you with its horns?  Oh, you must get it seen to at once.
I have read somewhere that the wound from an animal's horn is
frightfully dangerous."

"Well, it wasn't the horn this time, it was the hoof.  But I assure you
the thing is a mere scratch; I daresay it might have been worse but for
the waistcoat.  As it is, it's nothing."

"Really?  Seriously, mind?"

"Seriously.  But if you always turn your reading to such practical
account as you did just now, it'll be good for other people all along
the line.  It was even better than plucky, for it showed a quickness and
readiness of resource rare among women, and by no means so widely
distributed among men as we like to imagine."

"How good of you to say so," she answered, colouring up with pleasure.
"But--oh, what a pity to have had to kill such a curious animal.  Will
the old Squire be very angry, do you think, Mr Wagram?"

"He will be sorry; but you must credit him with a higher estimate of the
sanctity of human life for anger to enter his mind in this connection.
I am sure he will feel only too thankful that a most disastrous accident
has been averted."

"Oh, I am relieved.  Poor thing," she broke off, standing over the dead
gnu with a little shudder at the pool of blood which had trickled from
the small hole made by the bullet.  "It is very ugly, though."

"Yes; it's a sort of combination of goat and buffalo, and horse and
donkey, to all outward appearance.  Ah, here's someone at last," as two
men approached.  "Here, Perrin," to the foremost, "how on earth did this
fellow break out of the west park?  Are the palings broken down
anywhere?"

"Not as I knows on, sir," replied the man, who was an under keeper.  "I
was round there myself this morning, and 'twas all right then.  Reckon
he must ha' jumped.  Them things do jump terrible high at times.  Be you
hurt, sir?" with a look at the other's torn clothing.

"No; only a scratch.  But this young lady might have been killed.  You'd
better go to the village at once and let Bowles know there's a
butchering job here for him, and the sooner he sets about it the better,
or the light won't last.  Oh, and on the way tell Hood to go over now
and make sure there are no gaps or weak places in the palings, or we
shall have more of the things getting out I should never have believed
one would have taken that leap."

"Very good, sir," replied the keeper, turning away to carry out his
orders.

The girl, meanwhile, was watching Wagram with a whole-souled but
half-furtive admiration, not undashed with a little awe.  The fact of
her rescue by this man in a moment of ghastly peril, and at considerable
risk to himself, appealed to her less than did the cool, matter-of-fact
way in which he stood there issuing his orders, as though no
life-and-death struggle between himself and a powerful and infuriated
animal had just taken place.  Moreover, there was something in the way
in which he gave his orders--as it were, the way of one to whom such
direction was bound as by right to belong--that impressed her, and that
vividly.  Perhaps, too, the unconscious refinement of the man--a natural
refinement characterising not only his appearance, but his manner, the
tone of his voice, his every word--came especially home to her, possibly
by virtue of contrast.  Anyhow, it was there, and she hardly had time to
disguise the growing admiration in her eyes as he turned to her again.

"Will you walk on with me to the Court and have a rest and some tea?  We
can send you home in the brougham."

For a moment she hesitated.  The invitation was wholly alluring, but to
herself a perfectly unaccountable resolve came over her to decline it.
It is just possible that the one word "send" had turned the scale.  Had
he offered to accompany her home she would probably have accepted with
an alacrity needing some disguise.

"Oh no, thanks; I could not think of intruding upon you like that," she
answered.  "I live just outside Bassingham, and a mere three-mile walk
is nothing on a lovely evening like this."

"Are you sure you are doing what you would prefer?" he urged.

"Quite.  Oh, Mr Wagram, how can I thank you enough?  Why, but for you I
should be in as many pieces as my poor bicycle."

"And but for you, possibly, so should I," he laughed.

"Yes; only you would not have been there at all but for me, so that I am
still all on the debtor's side," she rejoined, flashing up at him a very
winning smile.

"Will you favour me with your address--here," holding out a pocket-book
open at a blank leaf.  "And--er--you seem to have the advantage of me as
to name."

"Have I?  Why, so I have," (writing).  Then handing it back he read:

"Delia Calmour, Siege House, Bassingham."

"Oh, you live in Bassingham, then?" he said, in a tone which seemed to
her to express surprise at never having seen her before.

"Yes; but I have been away for two years," she answered in implied
explanation which was certainly not accidental.  "I have only just come
home."

She hoped he would question her further; but he did not.

"Good-bye, Mr Wagram," putting forth her hand with a bright smile.  "I
shall return by the main road.  It's much shorter--besides, I've had
enough adventure for one afternoon."

"Well, if you won't reconsider my suggestion."

"Thanks, no; I had really better get back."

"And," he supplemented, "again let me remind you that the utter wreck of
your bicycle is our affair.  Oh, and by the way--er--in case you are put
out by the want of it even for a day or two in this splendid weather,
Warren, in Bassingham, keeps very good machines on hire--you understand,
our affair of course.  I will send him in word the first thing in the
morning."

"Now, Mr Wagram, you are really too good," she protested with real
warmth.  "I don't know whether I ought even to think of taking you at
your word."

"Ought?  But of course you must.  It's a matter, as I said before, of
hard, dry law, and damage.  Good-bye."

They had reached the gate by this time, and closing it behind her,
Wagram raised his hat and turned back to where lay the dead gnu.  Then,
as the men he had sent for had arrived, and he had given directions as
to the careful preserving of the head, he moved homeward.

The air seemed positively to thrill with the gush of bird-song as the
last rays of dazzling gold swept over the vivid greenery, ere the final
set of sun.  Passing the chapel, a Gothic gem, set in an embowering of
foliage, Wagram espied the family chaplain seated in front of his
rose-grown cottage, reading.

"Evening, Father," he called out.

The priest jumped up and came to the gate.  He was a man about Wagram's
own age, or a shade older, a cultured man, and possessed of a fund of
strong practical common sense, together with a keen sense of humour.
The two were great friends.

"Come in, come in, and help a lonely man through a lonely half hour, or
as many half-hours as you can spare; though I suppose it's getting too
near your dinner time for that."

"Why don't you stroll up with me and join us?" said Wagram, subsiding
into a cane chair.

"Thanks, but I can't to-night, and that for more reasons than one.  Now,
what'll you be taking?"

"Nothing, thanks, just now," answered Wagram, filling his pipe.  "I've
got a mighty unpleasant job sticking out if ever there was one.  Went
out to knock over a rabbit or two, and knocked over one of the blue
wildebeeste instead.  How's that?"

The priest gave a whistle.

"I wouldn't like to be the man to break the news to the old Squire," he
said, "unless the man happened to be yourself.  Did you kill it?"

"Dead as a herring, or rather, the girl did."

"The girl did!  What girl?"

"Why, the one the brute was chevying.  Of course I had to get between,
don't you see?"

"I don't.  You omitted the trifling detail that the said brute was
chevying anybody.  Now, begin at the beginning."

Wagram laughed.  This sort of banter was frequent between the two.  The
priest reached down for the half-smoked pipe he had let fall, relit it,
and listened as Wagram gave him the narrative, concise to baldness.

"Who was the girl?" he said, when Wagram had done.

"That's just the point.  First of all, do you know any people in
Bassingham named Calmour?"

"M'yes.  That is to say, I know _of_ them."

"What do they consist of?"

"One parent--male.  I believe three daughters.  Sons unlimited."

"What sort of people are they?"

"Ask the old Squire."

"That's good enough answer," laughed Wagram.  "You're not going to give
them a bad character, so you won't give them any.  All right.  I'll go
and ask him now, and, by Jove," looking at his watch, "it's time I did.
Good-night."

Father Gayle returned from the wicket, thinking.

"So that was the girl!" he said to himself.  "The eldest, from the
description.  I hope she won't make trouble."

For, as it happened, he had heard rather more about Delia Calmour and
her powers of attractiveness than Wagram had; moreover, he knew that
men, even those above the average, were very human.  Wagram, in his
opinion, was very much above the average, yet he did not want to foresee
any entanglement or complication that could not but be disastrous--
absolutely and irrevocably disastrous.



CHAPTER THREE.

FATHER AND SON.

The exclamation possessive which had escaped Wagram as he contemplated
Hilversea Court and its fair and goodly appurtenances, was, as a matter
of hard fact, somewhat "previous," in that these enviable belongings
would not be actually and entirely his until the death of his father; an
eventuality which he devoutly hoped might be delayed for many and many a
long year.  Yet, practically, the place might as well have been his own;
for since the motor car accident which had, comparatively speaking,
recently cut short the life of his elder brother, and he had taken up
his quarters at Hilversea, the old Squire had turned over to him the
whole management, even to the smallest detail.  And he had grown to love
the place with a love that was well-nigh ecstatic.  Every stick and
stone upon it, every leaf and blade of grass seemed different somehow to
the like products as existing beyond the boundary; and there were times
when the bare consciousness that he was destined to pass the remaining
half of his life here, was intoxicating, stupefying--too good indeed to
last.  It seemed too much happiness for a world whose joys are
notoriously fleeting.

While hurriedly dressing for dinner Wagram's mind reverted to the recent
adventure.  The old Squire had procured the African antelopes at
considerable trouble and expense; in fact, had made a hobby of it.  He
would certainly not be pleased at the outcome of the said adventure; and
the duty of breaking distasteful news to anybody was not a palatable one
to himself.  And the girl?  She seemed a nice enough girl, and
unmistakably an attractive one; and at the thought of her Wagram got out
a telegraph form and indited a hasty "wire" to the London agency of a
well-known cycle firm.  Then he went down, a little late, to find his
father ready and waiting.

The old Squire was a tall man of very refined appearance, and carried
his stature, in spite of his fourscore years, without stoop or bend, and
this, with his iron-grey moustache, would cause strangers to set him
down as a fine specimen of an old soldier--which was incorrect, for he
had spent the working period of his life in the Diplomatic Service.

"Well, Wagram, and what have you been doing with yourself?" he said, as
they passed into a gem of a panelled room looking out upon a lovely
picture of smooth sward and feathery elms.  It was the smaller
dining-room, always used when father and son were alone together.

"Oh, I crept around with the rabbit rifle--a sort of combination of
keeping my hand in, and at the same time admiring the evening effects."

"Did you get any good shots?"

"H'm, rather," thought Wagram to himself drily.  Then aloud, "Do you
know anybody in Bassingham, father, by name Calmour?"

"Calmour?  Calmour?" repeated the old man dubiously.  "I seem to know
the name too, but for the life of me I can't fit it with an owner.
Rundle," as the butler entered, "do I know any Calmour in Bassingham?"

"Well, sir, it's Major Calmour.  Lives at Siege House, just this side of
the bridge, sir."  And Wagram thought to detect a subtle grin drooping
the corners of the man's well-trained mouth as he filled the Squire's
glass.

"To be sure, to be sure.  Now it all comes back.  Major Calmour!  Ho--
ho--ho!  Wagram, that's the man right enough.  Why?  Has he been writing
to you about anything?"

"No.  But--who is he, anyway?"

"He is a retired army veterinary surgeon, addicted to strong drink, and
a wholly unnecessarily lurid way of expressing himself."

"I know the species.  What sort of a crowd are his descendants?"

"His descendants?  I believe they are many.  Their female parent was,
they say, even more partial to _aqua vita_ than their male; indeed,
report sayeth that she died thereof.  One, by the way, obtained large
damages from Vance's eldest fool in an action for breach of promise.  I
believe the family has been living on it ever since."

"Which of them was that?" said Wagram carelessly, wondering if it was
the heroine of the afternoon's adventure.

"I don't remember.  Which of them was it, Rundle?"

"I believe it was the second of the young ladies, sir," supplied the
butler, who, being an old and privileged and, withal, discreet