To one of the travellers the bustle of the town was more than welcome. It was Thursday, market day at East Grinstead, and the post-boys pushed their way with difficulty through streets teeming with chapmen and butter women, and here bleating with home-going sheep, there alive with the squeaking of pigs. Outside the White Lion a jovial half-dozen of graziers were starting home in company; for the roads were less safe on market evenings than on other days. In front of the Dorset Arms, where our party was to lie, a clumsy carrier's wain, drawn by oxen, stood waiting. The horse-block was beset by country bucks mounting after the ordinary; and in the yard a post-chaise was being wheeled into place for the night by the united efforts of two or three stable-boys. Apparently it had just arrived, for the horses, still smoking, were being led to the stable, through the press of beasts and helpers.

Sophia heaved a sigh of relief as the stir of the crowd sank into her mind. When Lady Betty, after they had washed and refreshed themselves, suggested that, until the disorder in the house abated, they would be as well strolling through the town, she made no demur; and, followed at a distance by one of the grooms, they sallied forth. The first thing they visited was the half-ruined church. After this they sat awhile in the churchyard, and then from the Sackville Almshouses watched the sun go down behind the heights of Worth Forest. They were both pleased with the novel scene, and Lady Betty, darting her arch glances hither and thither, and counting a score of conquests, drew more than one smile from her grave companion. True, these were but interludes, and poor Sophia, brooding on the future, looked sad twice for once she looked merry; but their fright in the carriage had no part in her depression. She had forgotten it in the sights of this strange place, when, almost at the inn door, it was forced on her attention.

She happened to look back to see if the groom was following, and to her horror caught sight, not of the groom, but of the cloaked stranger. It was evident he was dogging them, for the moment his eyes met hers he vanished from sight. There were still many abroad, belated riders exchanging last words before they parted, or topers cracking jokes through open windows; and the man was lost among these before Lady Betty had even seen him.

But Sophia had seen him; and she felt all her terrors return upon her. Trembling at every shadow--and the shadows were thickening, the streets were growing dark--she hurried her companion into the inn, nor rested until she had assured herself that the carriage was under lock and key in the chaise-house. Even then she was in two minds; apprehending everything, seeing danger in either course. Should she withdraw the diamonds from their hiding-place and conceal them about her person, or in the chamber which she shared with Lady Betty? Or should she leave them where they were in accordance with Sir Hervey's directions?

She decided on the last course in the end, but with misgivings. The fate of the jewels had come in her mind to be one with her fate. To lose them while they were in her care seemed to her one with appropriating them; and from that she shrank with an instinctive, overmastering delicacy, that spoke more strongly than any words of the mistake she had made in her marriage. They were his family jewels, his mother's jewels, the jewels of the women of his house; and she panted to restore them to his hands. She felt that only by restoring them to him safe, unaccepted, unworn, could she retain her self-respect, or her independence.

Naturally, Lady Betty found her anxiety excessive; and at supper, seeing her start at every sound, rallied her on her timidity. Their bedroom was at the back of the house, and looked through one window on the inn-yard and the door of the chaise-house. "I see clearly you would have been happier supping upstairs," Lady Betty whispered, taking advantage of an instant when the servants were out of earshot. "You do nothing but listen. Shall I go up, as if for my handkerchief, and see that all is right?"

"Oh, no, no!" Sophia cried.

"Oh, yes, yes, is what you mean," the other retorted good-naturedly; and was half-way across the room before Sophia could protest. "I am going upstairs for something I've forgotten, Watkyns," Lady Betty cried, as she passed the servant.

Sophia, listening and balancing her spoon in her hands, awaited her return; and the moments passed, and passed, and still Lady Betty did not come back. Sophia grew nervous and more nervous; rose at last to follow her, and sat down again, ashamed of the impulse. At length, when the waiter had gone out to hasten the second course, and Watkyns' back was turned, she could bear it no longer. She jumped up and slipped out of the room, passed two gaping servants at the foot of the stairs, and in a moment had darted up. Without waiting for a light, she groped her way along the narrow passage that led to the room she shared with Lady Betty. A window on the left looked into the inn-yard and admitted a glimmer of reflected light; but it was not this, it was something she heard as she passed it, that brought her to a sudden stand beside the casement. From the room she was seeking came the sound of a low voice and a stifled laugh. An instant Sophia fancied that Lady Betty was lingering there talking to her woman; and she felt a spark of annoyance. Then--what she thought she could never remember. For her eyes, looking mechanically through the panes beside her, saw, a little short of the fatal chaise-house, a patch of bright light, proceeding doubtless from the unshuttered window of the bedroom, and erect in the full of it the cloaked figure of the strange rider--of the man who had dogged them!

He was looking upwards at the illumined window, his hat raised a little from his head, the arm that held it interposed between Sophia's eyes and his face. Still she knew him. She had not a doubt of his identity. The candle rays fell brightly on the thick black wig, on the patched corner of the cloak, raised by the pose of his arm; and in a whirl of confused thoughts and fears, Sophia felt her knees shake under her.

A fresh whisper in the room was the signal for a low giggle. The man bowed and moved a step nearer, still bowing; which brought his knees against the sloping shaft of a cart that was set conveniently beneath the window. Sophia--a shiver running down her back as she saw how easily he could ascend--began to understand. The villain was tampering with Lady Betty's maid! Probably he was already in league with the woman; certainly, to judge by the sounds that reached the listener's ear--for again she caught a suppressed titter--he was on terms with her.

Sophia felt all a woman's rage against a woman, and wasted no further time on thought. She had courage and to spare, her fears for the jewels notwithstanding. In a twinkling she was at the door, had flung it open, and, burning with indignation, had bounced into the middle of the room, prepared to annihilate the offender. Yet not prepared for what she saw. In the room was only Lady Betty; who, as she entered, sprang from the window and stood confronting her with crimson cheeks.

"Betty!" Sophia gasped. "Betty?" And stood as if turned to stone; her face growing harder and harder, and harder. At last--"Lady Betty, what does this mean?" she asked in icy accents.

The girl giggled and shook her hair over her flushed face and wilful eyes; but did not answer.

"What does it mean?" Sophia repeated. "I insist on an answer."

Lady Betty pouted and half turned her back. "Oh, la!" she cried, at last, pettishly shrugging her shoulders, "Don't talk like that! You frighten me out of my wits! Instead of talking, we'd better close the window, unless you want him to be as wise as we are."

"Him!" Sophia cried, out of patience with the girl's audacity. "Him? Am I to understand, then, that you have been talking through the window? You a young lady in my company, to a man whom you never saw until to-day? A strange man met on the road, and of whose designs you have been warned? I cannot, I cannot believe it! I cannot believe my eyes, Lady Betty!" she continued warmly. "You, at this window, at this hour, talking to a common stranger? A stranger of whose designs I have warned you? Why, if your woman, miss, if your woman were to be guilty of such conduct, I could hardly believe it! I could hardly believe that I saw aright!"

And honestly Sophia was horrified; shocked, as well as puzzled. So that it seemed to her no more than fitting, no more than a late awakening to decency when the culprit, who had accomplished--but with trembling fingers--the closing of the window, pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, and flung herself on the bed. Sophia saw her shoulders heave with emotion, and hoped that at last she understood what she had done; that at last she appreciated what others would think of such reckless, such inexplicable conduct. And my lady prepared to drive home the lesson. Judge of her surprise, when Lady Betty cut her first word short by springing up as hastily as she had thrown herself down, and disclosed a face convulsed not with sorrow, but with laughter.

"Oh, you silly, silly thing!" she cried; and before Sophia could prevent her, she had cast her arms round her neck, and was hugging her in a paroxysm of mirth: "Oh, you dear, silly old thing! And it's only a week since you eloped yourself!"

"I!" Sophia cried, enraged by the ungenerous taunt. And she tried fiercely but vainly to extricate herself.

"Yes, you! You! And were married at Dr. Keith's chapel! And now how you talk! Mercy, ma'am, butter won't melt in your mouth now!"

"Lady Betty!" Sophia cried, in a cold rage, "let me go! Do you hear? Let me go! How dare you talk to me like that? How dare you?" she continued, trembling with indignation. "What has my conduct to do with yours? Or how can you presume to mention it in the same breath? I may have been foolish, I may have been indiscreet, but I never, never, stooped to----"

"Call it the highway at once," said the unrepentant one, "for I know that is what you have in your mind."

Sophia gasped. "If you can put it so clearly," she said, "I hope you have more sense than appears from the--the----"

"Lightness of my conduct!" Lady Betty cried, with a fresh peal of laughter. "Oh, you dear, silly old thing, I would not be your daughter for something!"

"Lady Betty?"

"You dear, don't you Lady Betty me! A highwayman? Oh, it is too delicious! Too diverting! Are you sure it isn't Turpin come to life again? Or Cook of Barnet? Or the gallant Macheath from the Opera? Why, you old dear, the man is nothing better nor worse than a--lover!"

"A lover?" Sophia cried.

"Well, yes--a lover," Lady Betty repeated, lightly enough; but to her credit be it said, she did blush at last--a little, and folded her handkerchief into a hard square and looked at it with an air of--of comparative bashfulness. "Dear me, yes--a lover. He followed us from London; and, to make the deeper impression, I suppose, made a Guy Fawkes of himself! That's all!"

"All?" Sophia said in amazement.

"Yes, all, all, all!" Lady Betty retorted, ridding herself in an instant of her penitent air. "All! And aren't you glad, my dear, to find that you were frightening yourself for nothing!"

"But who is he--the gentleman?" Sophia asked faintly.

"Oh, he is not a gentleman," the little flirt answered, tossing her head with pretty but cruel contempt. "He's"--with a giggle--"at least he calls himself--Mr. Fanshaw."

"Mr. Fanshaw?" Sophia repeated; and first wondered and then remembered where she had heard the name. "Can it be the same?" she exclaimed, reddening in spite of herself as she met Lady Betty's eye. "Is he a small, foppish man, full of monstrous airs and graces, and--and rather underbred?"

Lady Betty clapped her hands. "Yes," she cried. "Drawn to the life! Where did you see him? But I'll tell you if you like. 'Twas at Lane's, ma'am!"

"Yes, it was," Sophia answered a trifle sternly. "But how do you know, miss?"

"Well, I do know," Lady Betty answered. And again she had the grace to blush and look down. "At least--I thought it likely. Because, you old dear, don't you remember a note you picked up at Vauxhall gardens, that was meant for me? Yes, I vow you do. Well, 'twas from him."

"But that doesn't explain," Sophia said keenly, "why you guessed that I saw him at Lane's shop?"

"Oh," Lady Betty answered, wincing a little. "To be sure, no, it doesn't. But he's--he's just Lane's son. There, now you know it!"

"Mr. Fanshaw?"

Lady Betty nodded, a little shamefacedly. "'Tis so," she said. "For the name, it's his vanity. He's the vainest creature, he thinks every lady is in love with him. Never was such sport as to lead him on. I am sure I thought I should have died of laughing before you came in and frightened me out of my wits!"

Sophia looked at her gravely. "I am sure of something else," she said.

"Now you are going to preach!" Lady Betty cried; and tried to stop her mouth.

"No, I am not, but you gave me a promise, in my room in Arlington Street, Betty. That you would have nothing more to do with the writer of that note."

Lady Betty sat down on the bed and looked piteously at her companion. "Oh, I didn't, did I?" she said; and at last she seemed to be really troubled. "I didn't, did I? 'Twas only that I would not correspond with him. I protest it was only that. And I have not. I've not, indeed," she protested. "But when I found him under the window, and heard that he was Mohocking about the country in that monstrous cloak and hat, for all the world like the Beggar's Opera on horseback, and all for the love of me, it was not in flesh and blood not to divert oneself with him! He's such a creature! You've no notion what a creature it is!"

"I've this notion," Sophia answered seriously. "If you did not promise, you will promise. What is more, I shall send for him, and I shall tell him, in your presence, that this ridiculous pursuit must cease."

"But if he will not?" Lady Betty asked, with an arch look. "I am supposed--to have charms, you know?"

"I shall tell your father."

"La, ma'am," the child retorted, with a curtsey, "you are married! There is no doubt about that!"

Sophia reddened, but did not answer; and for a moment Betty sat on the bed, picking the coverlet with her fingers and looking sulky. On a sudden she leapt up and threw her arms round Sophia's neck. "Well, do as you like!" she cried effusively. "After all, 'twill be a charming scene, and do him good, the fright! Don't think," the little minx continued, tossing her head disdainfully, "that I ever wish to see him again, or would let him touch me with his little finger! Not I! But--one does not like to----"

"We'll have no but, if you please," Sophia said gently, but firmly. She had grown wondrous wise in the space of a short month. "Whatever he is, he is no fit mate for Lady Betty Cochrane, and shall not get her into trouble! I'll call your woman, and bid her go find him."

Fortunately the maid knocked at the door at that moment. She came, anxious to learn if anything ailed them, and why they did not return to finish their supper. They declined to do so, bade her have it removed, and a pot of tea brought; then Sophia told her what she wanted, and having instructed her, despatched her on her errand.

An assignation, through her woman, was the guise in which the affair appeared to Mr. Fanshaw's eyes when he got the message. And great was his joy nor less his triumph. Was ever lover, he asked himself, more completely or more quickly favoured? Could Rochester or Bellamour, Tom Hervey or my Lord Lincoln have made a speedier conquest? No wonder his thoughts, always on the sanguine side, ran riot as he mounted the stairs; or that his pulses beat to the tune of--

as he followed the maid along the passage.

The only sour in his cup, indeed, arose from his costume. That he knew to be better fitted for the road than for a lady's chamber; to be calculated rather to strike the youthful eye and captivate the romantic imagination at a distance than to become a somewhat puny person at short range. As he passed an old Dutch mirror, that stood in an angle of the stairs, he made a desperate attempt to reduce the wig, and control the cloak; but in vain, it was only to accentuate the boots. Worse, his guide looked to see why he lingered, caught him in the act, and tittered; after which he was forced to affect a haughty contempt and follow. But what would he not have given at that moment for his olive and silver, a copy of Mr. Walpole's birth-night suit? Or for his French grey and Mechlin, and the new tie-wig that had cost his foolish father seven guineas at Protin, the French perruquier's? Much, yet what mattered it, since he had conquered? Since even while he thought of these drawbacks, he paused on the threshold of his lady's chamber, and saw before him his divinity--pouting, mutinous, charming. She was standing by the table waiting for him with down cast eyes, and the most ravishing air in the world.

Strange to say he felt no doubt. It was his firm belief, born of Wycherley and fostered on CrÉbillon that all women were alike, and from the three beauty Fitzroys to Oxford Kate, were wax in the hands of a pretty fellow. It was this belief that had spurred him to great enterprises, if not as yet, to great conquests; and yet so powerfully does virtue impress even the sceptics, that he faltered as he entered the room. Besides that ladyship of hers dashed him! He could not deny that his heart bounced painfully. But courage! As he recalled the invitation he had received, he recovered himself. He advanced, simpering; he was ready, at a word, to fall at her feet. "Oh, ma'am, 'tis a happiness beyond my desert," he babbled--in his heart damning his boots, and trying to remember M. Siras' first position. "Only to be allowed to wait on your ladyship places me in the seventh heaven! Only to be allowed to worship at the shrine of beauty is--is a great privilege, ma'am. But to be permitted to hope--that I am not altogether--I mean, my lady," he amended, growing a little flustered, "that I am not entirely----"

"What?" Lady Betty asked, eyeing him archly, her finger in her mouth, her head on one side.

"Indifferent to your ladyship! Oh, I assure your ladyship never in all my life have I felt so profound a----"

"Really?"

"A--an admiration of any one, never have I----"

"Said so much to a lady! That, sir, I can believe!"

This time the voice was not Betty's, and he started as if he had been pricked. He spun round, and saw Sophia standing beside the fire, a little behind the door through which he had entered. He had thought himself alone with his inamorata; and his face of dismay was ludicrous. "Oh!" he faltered, bowing hurriedly, "I beg your pardon, ma'am, I--I did not see you."

"So I suppose," she answered, coldly, "or you would not have presumed to say such words to a lady."

He cringed. "I am sure," he stammered, "if I have been wanting in respect, I beg her ladyship's pardon! I am sure, I know----"

"Are you sure--you know who you are?" Sophia asked with directness.

He was all colours at once, but strove to mask the wound under a pretty sentence. "I trust a gentleman may aspire to--to all that beauty has to give," he simpered. "I may not, ma'am, be of her ladyship's rank."

"No, it is clear that you are not!" Sophia answered.

"But I am a gentleman."

"The question is, are you?" she retorted. "There are gentlemen and gentlemen. What is your claim to that name, sir?"

"S'help me, ma'am!" he exclaimed, affecting the utmost surprise and indignation. "The Fanshaws of Warwickshire have been commonly taken for such."

"The Fanshaws of Warwickshire?"

"Yes, my lady."

"Perhaps so. It may be so. I do not know them. But the Fanshaws of nowhere in particular? Or shall I say the Lanes of Piccadilly?"

His face flamed scarlet below the black wig. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. His eyes flickered as if she had threatened to strike him. For a moment he was a pitiable sight. Then with a prodigious effort, "I--I don't know what you are talking about," he muttered hoarsely. "I don't understand you, ma'am." But his smile was sickly, and his eye betrayed his misery.

"Don't lie, sir," Sophia said sternly; and, poor little wretch, found out and exposed, he writhed under her look of scorn. "We know who you are, a tradesman's son, parading in borrowed plumes. What we do not know, what we cannot understand," she continued with ineffable disdain, "is how you can think to find favour in a lady's eyes. In a lady's eyes--you! An under-bred, over-dressed apprentice, who have never done anything to raise yourself from the rank in which you were born! Do you know, have you an idea, sir, what you are in our eyes? Do you know that a lady would rather marry her footman; for, at least, he is a man. If you do not, you must be taught, sir, as the puppy is taught with the whip. Do you understand me?"

In his deserved degradation, his eyes sought Lady Betty's face. She was looking at him gravely; he read no hope in her eyes. What the other woman told him then was true; and, ah, how he hated her! Ah, how he hated her! He did not know that she scourged in him another's offence. He did not know that of her scorn a measure fell on her own shoulders; that she had been deluded by such an one as he was himself. Above all, he did not know that she was resolved that the child with her should not suffer as she had suffered!

He thought that she was moved by sheer wanton brutality; and cringing, smarting under the lash of her tongue, seeing himself for the moment as others saw him--a mean little jackanapes mimicking his betters--he could have strangled her. But he was dumb.

"You had the audacity," Sophia continued, gravely, "to attend me once, I remember, and ply me with your foolish compliments! And you have written to this lady, you, a shopman----"

"I am not a--a shopman!" he stuttered, writhing.

"In grade you are; it were more honour to you were you one in reality!" she retorted. "But I repeat it, you have written to this lady, who, the better to teach you a lesson, did not at once betray what she thought you. For the future, however, understand, sir. If you pester her with attentions, or even cross her path, I will find those who will cane you into behaviour. And in such a way that you will not forget it! For the rest, let me advise you to get rid of those preposterous clothes, change that sword for an ell-wand, and go back to your counter. You may retire now. Or no! Pettitt!" Sophia continued, as she opened the door, "Pettitt!" to Lady Betty's woman, "show this person downstairs."

He sneaked out, dumb. For what was he to say? They were great ladies, and he a person, fit company for the steward's room, a little above the servants' hall. He bent his head under the maid's scornful eye, hurried, stumbling in his boots, down the narrow stairs, nor did he breathe until he reached the dark street, where his little chest beginning to heave, he burst into scalding tears of rage.

He suffered horribly in his tenderest part--his conceit. He burned miserably, impotently, poor weakling, to be revenged. If he could bring those proud women to their knees! If he could see them humbled, as they had humbled him! If he could show them that he was not the poor creature they deemed him! If he could sear their insolent faces--the smallpox seize them! If he could--aye, the smallpox seize them!

Presently he slunk back to the White Lion, where he had his bed; and, finding a fire still burning in the empty taproom--for the evening was chilly--he took refuge there, and, laying his head on the beer-stained table, wept anew. The next time he looked up he found that a man and woman had entered the room, and were standing on the hearth, gazing curiously at him.