"Yes, Lucy, you must go, and quickly; you shall no longer poison my home with your presence. You have brought sufficient misery to me and mine."
There was a something in the way young Mrs. Haggard had spoken that convinced Lucy Warrender of her sincerity.
Her cousin turned and left the room without a word.
That same evening Miss Warrender announced her intention of making a long-postponed visit to some friends in town. In vain her uncle remonstrated, and pointed out that her presence was expected with the rest of the family at Walls End Castle.
"I couldn't stand it, uncle," she said; "we are quiet enough and dull enough here, heaven knows; but a month at the Castle would be too dreadful. Besides it is Georgie who is the old lord's favourite. I don't think I'm in his good books at all. I've put off and put off this visit so long, that if I don't make it now, I never shall. And even London out of the season is to my mind preferable to the oppressive magnificence of the Castle. Lord Pit Town is Reginald's relative, not mine; I should only be in the way, Uncle."
Lucy went to her friends in town, and from their house she commenced a round of visits. She corresponded regularly enough with her cousin, and there was nothing very remarkable about the letters that were interchanged. Not one word was dropped by either cousin on the subject of the family secret. Perhaps a letter written about this time from Lord Spunyarn to his friend Haggard may throw a little light upon the way in which Miss Warrender amused herself.
"The Club House, "Royal Yacht Squadron, Ryde. "13th August, 18--.
"Here I am swaggering about this place in a blue coat and brass buttons, like the other sham sailors. I'm quite out of the hunt here, however, for I can't pretend to understand the jargon of the thing. Old and new measurements, tonnage, time allowances and movable ballast, are all a sealed book to me. Of course I go on to the balcony with the other idiots to stare at the matches, and, like them, I have to pretend to manifest an intelligent interest.
"To use a nautical simile your wife's cousin is 'carrying on' here. If I didn't know her so well I should think she meant marrying. Half the men here, including old Marlingspike, the venerable commodore, dance attendance upon her from morning till night, and she certainly looks a very bright little, tight little craft in her nautical get-up, which is the regulation thing with the women here. They say that little Jack Hornpiper proposed to her the other day; it looks rather like it, for he has suddenly started for a lengthened cruise in the Mediterranean.