"Jilted!" cried Vixen, her big brown eyes shining, in pleasantest mockery. "Why I thought Lady Mabel adored you?"
"So did I," answered Roderick naïvely, "and I pitied the poor dear thing for her infatuation. Had I not thought that, I should have broken my bonds long ago. It was not the love of the Duke's acres that held me. I still believe that Mabel was fond of me once, but Lord Mallow bowled me out. His eloquence, his parliamentary success, and, above all, his flattery, proved irresistible. The scoundrel brought a marriage certificate in his pocket when he came to stay at Ashbourne, and had the art to engage rooms at Southampton and sleep there a night _en passant_. He left a portmanteau and a hat-box there, and that constituted legal occupancy; so, when he won Lady Mabel's consent to an elopement--which I believe he did not succeed in doing till the night before our intended wedding-day--he had only to ride over to Southampton and give notice to the parson and clerk. The whole thing was done splendidly. Lady Mabel went out at eight o'clock, under the pretence of going to early church. Mallow was waiting for her with a fly, half a mile from Ashbourne. They drove to Southampton together, and were married at ten o'clock, in the old church of St. Michael. While the distracted Duchess and her women were hunting everywhere for the bride, and all the visitors at Ashbourne were arraying themselves in their wedding finery, and the village children were filling their baskets with flowers to strew upon the pathway of the happy pair, emblematical of the flowers which do _not_ blossom in the highway of life, the lady was over the border with Jock o' Hazeldean! Wasn't it fun, Vixen?"
And the jilted one flung back his handsome head and laughed long and loud. It was too good a joke, the welcome release coming at the last moment.
"At half-past ten there came a telegram from my runaway bride:
"'Ask Roderick to forgive me, dear mamma. I found at the last that my heart was not mine to give, and I am married to Lord Mallow. I do not think my cousin will grieve very much.'
"That last clause was sensible, anyhow, was it not, Vixen?"
"I think the whole business was very sensible," said Vixen, with a sweet grave smile; "Lord Mallow wanted a clever wife and you did not. It was very wise of Lady Mabel to find that out before it was too late."