“You have now,” she said, “lost the finest young lady in the kingdom. You were about to contract a marriage altogether beyond what a man of your position and birth could hope for. You a middle-aged widower, of no particular title--what’s a baronet?--of no such remarkable fortune, with certainly no good looks to commend you--you were about to espouse the loveliest little creature in all the world, the Queen’s favourite, scarce eighteen--a beauty, sir, of the first family! And on some kind of monstrous whimsy, arising from your own bad past--oh, of that I am quite certain, Sir Jasper--you have cast away this flower, and you have cast away with it your good name, your good fame, your own claim to be a gentleman! Never will that cake be eaten for your wedding with Lady Selina Vereker, I can promise you that! Oh, she’s out of conceit with you, poor child! ‘Only one thing I beg of you!’ she says to me. ‘Do not ask me to look at him again, for I never, never can!’ ‘Then you shall not,’ says I. I uphold her, sir, in her determination. ‘You’ve come out of this business with flying colours, my love,’ I says, ‘and the Queen shall hear the whole story.’ Fie, Sir Jasper, how you bellow! I have one last word to speak to you, sir, aye, indeed, the very last you shall ever hear from these lips, and that is that I scarce think there’s a gentleman of your friends, when it gets about the clubs, who would deem it worth his honour to cross swords with such as you.” She made a great flounce of silk skirts as if to withdraw, but he was down on his knees clutching at them; to do him justice, less affected by her threats and the picture she had drawn of his awful position than by the realisation that he had lost his bride. Never had Lady Selina appeared to his eyes in a light so entrancing; never did he so clearly perceive the worthlessness of his existence without her, as in this moment, when he believed he had lost her. His distress was so genuine, his supplications were so heartrending, that Kitty Kilcroney could not but let herself be mollified. She exacted every possible pledge of future good conduct, she obtained the completest retractation, the most abject and repeated apologies before sending for Selina. When this young lady appeared Sir Jasper was put to another half-hour of torture ere he was re-admitted to favour; and even then the bride remained cold and unresponsive, and looked with a hard glitter in her eyes from one to the other, as if she had by no means forgiven her betrothed, and was scarce grateful to my Lady Kilcroney for her share in the reconciliation. She had that moment, she informed him, sent the parcel containing Sir Jasper’s presents, including the betrothal ring, by a trusted hand to his house; she vowed she considered matters vastly well as they stood; both would yet repent a return to the old terms.