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  ‘And what,’ enquired the Earl, ‘is the name of the youth you are pursuing?’

  Lord Charlton opened his mouth, and shut it again.

  ‘Damme Reveley, what’s that to do with it? He’s an – an imposter! I don’t know what name he is using. If you are concealing him –’

  ‘My dear Charlton,’ interrupted the Earl wearily, ‘what possible object could I have in concealing a strange youth? I fear you are not entirely yourself. Let me offer you a glass of wine!’

  ‘Thank you, no! All I require, my lord, is to know where your companion has gone to!’

  ‘I am not quite sure,’ said the Earl with perfect truth. ‘He left me in haste.’

  Lord Charlton gave vent to a short bark of laughter. ‘He did, did he? Did he say where he was going?’

  ‘No,’ said the Earl, ‘but I believe him to be bound ultimately for Bath.’

  ‘Bath!’ ejaculated Lord Charlton. ‘Just as I thought! I am obliged to you, sir.’

  With which he jerked a bow and hurried out again, noisily pulling the door to behind him.

  The Earl strolled over to the window, and watched Lord Charlton emerge from the inn, cast an order to his postilions, and leap up into his chaise. As it drove off the door at the end of the room opened cautiously, and Mr Brown, still with a very pale face, slipped into the room.

  ‘Has he gone, sir?’ asked Mr Brown nervously.

  The Earl turned his head.

  ‘Yes, he has gone,’ he answered in his quiet way. Mr Brown advanced further into the room.

  ‘You don’t suppose he will return, do you?’ he said.

  ‘I think it improbable,’ said the Earl.

  ‘Oh!’ Mr Brown gave a sigh of relief, but almost immediately his face fell, and he said despairingly:

  ‘But I don’t know what to do. I never dreamed he would come after me so soon. It is useless for me to go to Bath now, for he will get there first. I am quite undone! Not but what I am very grateful to you for fobbing him off,’ he added politely. ‘Indeed, I do not know how to thank you.’

  ‘Pray do not give it a thought,’ said the Earl. ‘No doubt the gentleman is a relative of Miss X?’

  ‘Yes – no! I mean –’ Mr Brown hung down his head, and began with a slim finger to trace a pattern on one of the chair-backs. ‘I am afraid I did not tell you quite the true story,’ he confessed.

  ‘I am aware,’ said the Earl dryly.

  Mr Brown cast him an unhappy glance, and said:

  ‘The fact is I am – I am running away from Charlton.’ He waited for the Earl to make some comment, and when none came, said defensively:

  ‘I dare say you think that a cowardly thing to do, but you do not know the whole! If I fall into Charlton’s hands I am lost!’

  ‘I begin to have fears that I may be assisting a felon to escape,’ remarked the Earl.

  ‘No, no, it is not at all like that!’ Mr Brown assured him.

  The Earl came back to the table. ‘Well, what is it like?’ he asked persuasively.

  ‘Well – well, if you must know,’ said Mr Brown desperately, ‘I have been trifling with his sister!’

  A muscle quivered at the corner of the Earl’s mouth. ‘That is very shocking. Er – how did you trifle with this lady?’

  Mr Brown made a vague gesture. ‘Oh – how does one trifle with a lady?’

  ‘I wonder?’ said the Earl.

  Mr Brown said with a touch of asperity: ‘You must surely know. Any man would!’

  ‘Certainly,’ agreed the Earl. ‘But do you know?’

  Mr Brown’s eyes flew to his face, startled and questioning. Mr Brown flushed scarlet.

  ‘Oh!’ he said, in a small, frightened voice. ‘You have guessed the truth!’

  ‘Of course I have,’ said the Earl gently. He drew a chair out from the table. ‘Will you sit down and tell me the real story?’

  His guest obeyed, averting a very red face. The Earl smiled a little, and said matter-of-factly:

  ‘I think I have the honour of addressing Miss Wetherby, have I not?’

  This speech had the effect of bringing the lady’s head round.

  ‘Yes, I am Henrietta Wetherby. But how did you know?’

  ‘Another of my guesses,’ explained his lordship gravely.

  Miss Wetherby edged her chair closer to the table, and tucked her legs out of sight.

  ‘You are extremely clever, I think,’ she said. ‘Charlton is the brother I spoke of. You see the story was partly true, I – I am Miss X, though, of course, I am not a reigning toast.’

  ‘Or raven-haired,’ interpolated the Earl.

  ‘No,’ sighed Miss Wetherby. ‘I said that because it is just what I should like to be. But the rest was true. They are trying to make me – Mamma and Charlton – marry Mr Poulton, and I won’t, I won’t!’

  ‘I think you are perfectly right,’ said the Earl.

  ‘Oh, do you know him?’ exclaimed Miss Wetherby eagerly.

  ‘No, but I still think you perfectly right,’ replied the Earl.

  Miss Wetherby looked a little puzzled, but said: ‘Well, I am. But they would not listen to me, and Charlton has been so odious, that I made up my mind to run away. That is why I am in – in these clothes. They belong to my brother Harry. He is up at Oxford, and luckily he is not at all big. And I was going to throw myself on the mercy of a very dear friend of mine, who lives at Bath. She is excessively romantic, and I quite depended on her for help. But now that Charlton has gone there – and I must say I think it was clever of him to guess so quickly – it is all of no use. I do not know what I can do.’

  The Earl said: ‘Will you put your affairs into my hands, Miss Wetherby?’

  She looked hopefully up at him. ‘Have you thought of a plan?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Earl. ‘I have thought of a plan, though I shall not tell you just yet what it is. Do you think you can trust me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Wetherby shyly. The Earl took one of her hands in his, and raised it to his lips.

  ‘I am glad that you have not got raven hair, and an air of consequence,’ he said. ‘I am going to take you home, my dear.’

  Her fingers tightened involuntarily on his.

  ‘Oh no!’ she whispered. ‘Oh, please do not!’

  He held her hand comfortingly.

  ‘Not to marry Mr Poulton, I promise you.’

  ‘But if you take me home they will try to make me!’

  ‘You have my word for it that they will not.’

  ‘But – but why won’t they?’ demanded Miss Wetherby, bewildered.

  ‘Because I shall tell your mamma that I don’t want you to marry Mr Poulton,’ said the Earl coolly.

  ‘Mamma won’t attend to you! Why should she?’

  ‘Because –’ the Earl broke off. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Believe me, you shall not again be asked to marry Mr Poulton.’

  Miss Wetherby’s candid blue eyes searched his.

  ‘I don’t understand how you mean to stop Mamma and Charlton,’ she said. ‘But if you say I must – I will go home.’

  It was rather a woebegone figure that the Earl presently handed into his chaise, and at the end of the long drive back to London, when the horses were pulled up outside a house in Mount Street, Miss Wetherby said wistfully:

  ‘Shall I ever see you again? You have been so very kind to me!’

  ‘You will see me tomorrow,’ promised the Earl.

  ‘But you will be on your way to Bath!’

  ‘I am not going to Bath. I am coming to pay a call in Mount Street.’

  ‘Oh!’ gasped Miss Wetherby, her brow clearing as though by magic.

  ‘And you will speak to Mamma?’

  ‘Immediately.’

  ‘Then I think,’ said Miss Wetherby, ‘that I will slip in by the door in the area, so that Mamma need not see me in Harry’s clothes.’

  ‘That would be very shocking.’ The Earl chuckled. ‘Er – how did you trifle with that lady?’

  Miss