Strictly, 'tis what good people style untruth But yet, so far, not quite the full-grown thing!
—Browning.
Sir John Ayloffe leaned back in his chair, and satisfied that he once more held the close attention of the company, he resumed pleasantly:
 
"Will you, good my lord, and all of you gallant gentlemen grant me five minutes wherein to place before you the situation as it at present stands? Here is my lord of Stowmaries tied by so-called indissoluble marriage vows to a bride whom he doth not desire for wife, and whom he last saw borne away kicking and screaming in the arms of a waiting wench. And there over in Paris is the daughter of a worthy tailor, a girl born in a back shop, presumably ill-favoured and certainly vulgar, but who has pretensions of being Countess of Stowmaries de facto as well as de jure. She it was who eighteen years ago was as aforesaid borne away kicking and screaming in the arms of a waiting wench. She was then not much more than twelve months of age, and has not since that moment seen my lord of Stowmaries here, our gracious, if—momentarily—somewhat troubled friend."
 
A sneering grunt from Sir Knaith Bullock, a groan from Stowmaries and a murmur of assent from the others were audible whilst Sir John paused for breath.
 
"The Catholic Church for which we all have deep respect," continued Ayloffe, "doth not allow that the bonds[77] of matrimony thus contracted eighteen years ago shall be severed just because my lord of Stowmaries doth not happen for the moment to have a desire for the tailor's daughter; she having done naught to merit repudiation, since her being carried away kicking and screaming from the presence of her lord when her age had not reached fifteen months, doth not constitute a serious offence in the eyes of the law."
 
"We know all that, man, we know all that," quoth Stowmaries moodily, "and by the Mass you repeat yourself like a country parson in the pulpit."
 
"Gently, good my lord," rejoined Ayloffe imperturbably. "What I have to say is a somewhat delicate matter. I am dealing with a Countess of Stowmaries—and if you did not accept my scheme—"
 
He paused and shrugged his shoulders in token of self-deprecation.
 
"It may not after all meet with your favour."
 
"Out with it, man—out with it," came, partly gaily, wholly impatiently from every side.
 
"'Tis simple enough," said Sir John, "but were easier to say an you, gentlemen, would help me by guessing—My lord of Stowmaries hath not seen his bride, nor was he seen by her, since she was little more than a year old—that is so, my lord, is it not?"
 
"It is," assented Stowmaries curtly.
 
"Impressions at that age are not lasting. Infantile memory doth not hold an image. We may assume that if the tailor's daughter were placed in the presence of—er—of any gentleman of noble bearing, she would not know if he were her lord—or not."
 
There was silence around the table now. Neither assent nor dissent followed Ayloffe's last words. On the face of the young Irishman curiosity still remained impressed. The[78] suggestion so slightly hinted at had not yet reached his inner consciousness; on that of Lord Rochester comprehension had just begun to dawn, a sense of astonishment plainly struggled with one of doubt. But Sir Anthony Wykeham almost imperceptibly drew his chair somewhat away from the table.
 
Lord Stowmaries in the meanwhile kept his eyes steadily fixed on those of Sir John. They expressed neither doubt nor astonishment, only intense excitement, an obvious desire to hear that hint more fully explained. It was his hoarse mutter "Go on! curse you—why don't you go on?" that first broke the momentary silence which had fallen over the small assembly.
 
"Nay!" rejoined Ayloffe blandly, "I see that you, at least, my lord, have already taken me. Is not my scheme vastly simple? The tailor's daughter awaits her lord. He comes. She falls into his arms, and after the usual festivities in the back shop of her estimable parents, the bridegroom takes his bride home to far-off England. But mark what hath occurred—it was not my lord of Stowmaries who had gone to claim his bride, but some other man who prompted by his passion for the tailor's beautiful daughter, a passion—we might even suppose—encouraged by the lady herself, had impersonated the bridegroom and snatched the golden prize despite my lord of Stowmaries and the most solemn vows of matrimony contracted eighteen years ago. Imagine the result: the shame, the crying scandal! My lord of Stowmaries is of a surety no longer bound to acknowledge a wife whose very name will have become a byword for every gossip to peck at, and whose virtue hath already been the toy of an adventurer as unscrupulous as he was daring. Not the Catholic Church, not the law of England, nor the decree of the Pope would enforce the original[79] marriage vows after that. I give you my word, gentlemen, that my lord of Stowmaries will be granted leave by every high tribunal, spiritual or temporal, to repudiate the wench who had thus disgraced his name."
 
Sir John Ayloffe had long finished speaking and silence still reigned all around him. Even the noise in the next room seemed for the moment unaccountably to have ceased. Folk say that when such silences occur in merry company, angels fly across the room, and the flutter of their wings can distinctly be heard. What angels then were these who haunted the private room of the "Three Bears" now? What record of ignominy and dishonour did they mark upon the tablets of infinity when with gentle flutter of wings they passed silently by? To the credit of all these gentlemen here present be it said, that their first feeling was one of shame, when they fully understood the dastardly suggestion which Sir John was making to one of themselves; but the shame was not acute enough to produce horrified repudiation.
 
Sir Anthony Wykeham certainly still held aloof, but Stowmaries had not winced. That he understood the suggestion to the full, there could be no doubt. His face had flushed to the roots of his hair, his fingers were fidgeting nervously against one another and excitement verging on intoxication caused his eyes to glow with an unnatural inward fire. His thoughts had flown straight back to the prettily furnished parlour in Holborn Row, to Mistress Julia Peyton's violet eyes and the exquisite scent of her white hands when he had pressed them to his lips. His love for her—call it passion or desire an you will—had grown in intensity as the obstacle which separated him from her had seemed more and more insurmountable. In the past few hours that same passion had reached a stage of fever[80] heat, impatient at control, chafing at impotence and longing for satisfaction with all the strength of thwarted desire.
 
Rupert Kestyon, Earl of Stowmaries and Riveaulx, had been brought up in the hard school of colonial life; in his boyhood he had been denied every kind of pleasure and luxury in which the sense of youth revels, through what he called an unjust Fate; then suddenly he had seen himself thrown in the very lap of Fortune, his every desire satisfied and his every whim made law. The change was sudden enough to throw off its balance a more firm character than that of the son of Captain Kestyon—spendthrift, profligate, a rogue from temperament. Like his father's, Rupert's was essentially a weak nature. He had never attempted to fight Fate, when Fate was against him. When Fortune smiled, he took everything she offered him without attempt at restraint;—and the jade had become very lavish with her gifts to the young outcast who awhile ago had often enough been obliged to tighten his belt against the gnawing pangs of hunger.
 
He had found friends, followers, sycophants; had been favoured by royalty and smiled on by beauty, but Mistress Peyton was the first passion in his life. He had flirted with her for months, made easy love to her for weeks, but he had not realised that he loved her until twenty-four hours ago when he knew that she was lost to him.
 
The knowledge that here was the chief desire of his heart, and that this desire he could not gratify, despite his position, his personality and his wealth, almost unhinged his mind. It was two years now since he had exercised any self-denial. He had lost all knowledge of that useful art, and was determined not to learn it again.
 
The day on which he heard that through an appalling[81] catastrophe, which had swept his kindred into the sea and broken the heart of an old man, he, Rupert Kestyon, the penniless son of a spendthrift father, had become rich, influential, one of the greatest gentlemen in the kingdom, he had said with a sigh of genuine satisfaction: "Now I mean to live!" and with him living meant solely the gratification of his every wish. Now he saw his greatest wish in all the world born only to be thwarted.
 
It was monstrous, unthinkable! But from that wholesome fear of ecclesiastical authority peculiar in those days to men of his creed, he would have rebelled. Respect for the Church to which he belonged, dread of a scandal which might tarnish the great name he bore, and undermine his pleasant position alone caused him to be submissive.
 
He was not clever enough to find out a means of freeing himself from irksome bonds, and had drained the cup of despair to its bitter dregs without thinking or even hoping for an issue out of his misery.
 
But now a man spoke—a man whom in his saner moments he heartily despised, whom he knew to be shiftless, unscrupulous, a born gambler—but yet a man who showed him a way out of the quagmire of despair into a possible haven of hope.
 
............