“And what have you done, I should like to know?” cried Mrs. Moll. “And with an object,” went on the gentleman, not deigning to answer her, “which is only perfectly apparent to me at a late hour. But that recognition, now it has come, imposes a duty on me, and on you the perhaps unwelcome realization that I am the master of this house. I neither ask nor expect you to betray to me this creature of yours and of my lord Duke: I shall identify him in good time, and then he will not have reason to congratulate himself on his amiable participation in your designs. But, as to yourself, I have merely to intimate that I shall esteem it a favour, and to avoid unpleasantness, if you will put an early period to your visit here.” He bowed with such an immense and killing stateliness, that the young lady was quite overawed, and for the moment had not a word to answer; and so, walking deliberately, with his head high, he left the room. Mrs. Davis sat for some minutes after he was gone, her face a lively play of emotions. “Why, deuce take it!” she thought, her lids wide, “if he doesn’t believe as I’ve used Kit for go-between with Madam and the Duke creature. Mussey-me!” Her eyes half closed, her little nose wrinkled, stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth, she went into a scream of laughter. But her mood soon changed. Panting, she rose to her feet and struck one little fist into the palm of the other. “So I’m to go, am I!” she said. “Not before I’ve paid you for that insult, my lad. I don’t quite know how, yet, but somehow, the last word’s got to be with me.” CHAPTER XIV The tormented nobleman, craving for advice and sympathy, lost little time before he sought out his friend and kinsman, Mr. George Hamilton. He found that gentleman, who had just returned from a game of pell-mell with his Majesty, refreshing himself with a pot and sop in his own chambers, before committing himself and his mid-day toilet to the hands of his valet. Chesterfield drove out the man incontinent, and closed the door on him. “I want a word with you, George,” said he, breathless and agitated--too disturbed and full of his subject to apologize or finesse. “It’s all out; I’ve discovered the truth; and, curse me, if ’twere the King himself, I’d bury my sword in his treacherous heart. As it is----” Hamilton, his face half hidden by the quart pot, put up an expostulatory hand, and bubbled amphorically. “As it is, let me finish my ale.” “O, you can jest,” cried the other; “but I tell you ’tis no jesting matter. So he hath wronged me, I’ll have his life, were he twenty James Stuarts rolled into one.” George set down the tankard, drained. His eyes gaped a little. “The Duke of York?” “Damn him!” cried the Earl. “I always said it was he, but you would never believe me. And now he hath been to visit her, on what false pretext I know not, and they have been closeted alone, together--alone, in her private apartments.”