“Lord, no, ma'am,” said the man. “You can give them to the keeper and nurse in charge of him.”
Lady Bassett slipped a guinea into the man's hand directly. “Let me see those people,” said she.
The man winked, and vanished: he soon reappeared, and said, loudly, “Now, madam, if you will order the things into the hall.”
Lady Bassett came out and gave the order.
A short, bull-necked man, and rather a pretty young woman with a flaunting cap, bestirred themselves getting down the things; and Mr. Salter came out and looked on.
Lady Bassett called Mary Wells, and gave her a five-pound note to slip into the man's hand. She telegraphed the girl, who instantly came near her with an India rubber bath, and, affecting ignorance, asked her what that was.
Lady Bassett dropped three sovereigns into the bath, and said, “Ten times, twenty times that, if you are kind to him. Tell him it is his cousin's doing, but his wife watches over him.”
“All right,” said the girl. “Come again when the doctor is here.”
All this passed, in swift whispers, a few yards from Mr. Salter, and he now came forward and offered his arm to conduct Lady Bassett to the carriage.
But the wretched, heart-broken wife forgot her art of pleasing. She shrank from him with a faint cry of aversion, and got into her carriage unaided. Mary Wells followed her.
Mr. Salter was unwilling to receive this rebuff. He followed, and said, “The clothes shall be given, with any message you may think fit to intrust to me.”
Lady Bassett turned away sharply from him, and said to Mary Wells, “Tell him to drive home. Home! I have none now. Its light is torn from me.”
The carriage drove away as she uttered these piteous words.
She cried at intervals all the way home; and could hardly drag herself upstairs to bed.
Mr. Angelo called next day with bad news. Not a magistrate would move a finger against Mr. Bassett: he had the law on his side. Sir Charles was evidently insane; it was quite proper he should be put in security before he did some mischief to himself or Lady Bassett. “They say, why was he hidden for two months, if there was not something very wrong?”
Lady Bassett ordered the carriage and paid several calls, to counteract this fatal impression.