Circumstances seemed to prove that the
deceitful girl had feigned indisposition to get an excuse for
leaving the ball-room, and that she had left the house within ten
minutes, presumably during the first dance after supper.
'I saw her go,' said Lord Uplandtowers.
'The devil you did!' says Sir John.
'Yes.' And he mentioned the retreating carriage-lights, and how he
was assured by Lady Grebe that no guest had departed.
'Surely that was it!' said the father. 'But she's not gone alone,
d'ye know!'
'Ah--who is the young man?'
'I can on'y guess. My worst fear is my most likely guess. I'll say
no more. I thought--yet I would not believe--it possible that you
was the sinner. Would that you had been! But 'tis t'other, 'tis
t'other, by G-! I must e'en up, and after 'em!'
'Whom do you suspect?'
Sir John would not give a name, and, stultified rather than
agitated, Lord Uplandtowers accompanied him back to Chene. He again
asked upon whom were the Baronet's suspicions directed; and the
impulsive Sir John was no match for the insistence of Uplandtowers.
He said at length, 'I fear 'tis Edmond Willowes.'
'Who's he?'
'A young fellow of Shottsford-Forum--a widow-woman's son,' the other
told him, and explained that Willowes's father, or grandfather, was
the last of the old glass-painters in that place, where (as you may
know) the art lingered on when it had died out in every other part
of England.
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