Lady Standish reared herself with a sort of desperate heart-sickness into a sitting posture and turned her head to look dully upon her visitor.
"You come too late," she said; "my lord. Sir Jasper has gone to this most disastrous meeting."
"My dear Lady Standish," said Dr. Thurlow, "my dear child," he took a chair and drew it to the sofa, and then lifted her slight languid hand and held it between his two plump palms. "My dear Lady Standish," pursued he in a purring, soothing tone. If he did not know how to deal with an afflicted soul (especially if that afflicted soul happened to belong to the aristocracy and in preference inhabited a young female body), who did? "I came upon the very moment I received your letter. I might perhaps have instantly done something to help in this matter, had you been more explicit, but there was a slight incoherence ... very natural!" Here he patted her hand gently. "A slight incoherence which required explanations. Now tell me--I gather that your worthy husband has set forth upon an affair of honour, eh? Shall we say a duel?"
"Some trifling quarrel. Hot-headed young men! It is very reprehensible, but we must not be too hard on young blood. Young blood is hot! Well, well, trust in a merciful Providence, my dear Lady Standish. You know, not a sparrow falls, not a hair of our heads, that is not counted. Was the, ah--quarrel about cards, or some such social trifle?"
"It was about me," said the afflicted wife in a strangled voice.
"About you, my dear lady!" The clasp of the plump hand grew, if possible, a trifle closer, almost tender. Lady Standish was cold and miserable, this warm touch conveyed somehow a vague feeling of strength and comfort.
"About me," she repeated, and her lip trembled.
"Ah, is it so? And with whom does Sir Jasper fight?"
"With Colonel Villiers," said she, and shot a glance of full misery into the benign large-featured face bending over her.
"Colonel Villiers," repeated the Bishop in tones of the blankest astonishment. "Not--eh, not--er, old Colonel Villiers?"
"Oh, my lord," cried Lady Standish, "I am the most miserable and the most innocent of women!"
"My dear madam," cried the Bishop, "I never for an instant doubted the latter." His hold upon her hand relaxed, and she withdrew it to push away the tears that now began to gather thick and fast on her eyelashes. The Bishop wondered how it was he had never noticed before what a very pretty woman Lady Standish was, what charming eyes she had, and what quite unusually long eyelashes. It was something of a revelation to him too, to see so fair and fine a skin in these days of rouge and powder.