"Never mind.--I'm horribly sold," he said, with a tight grin. "I
thought you must have some good thing in hand to make it worth
your while to send for me."
"Then I must try something else," reflected Mary aloud.
"I wouldn't advise you. The man's only the surer to hate you and
stick to her. Let him alone. If he's a stuck-up fellow like that,
it will take him down a bit--when the truth comes out, that is,
as come out it must. There's one good thing in it, my wife'll get
rid of her. But I don't know! there's an enemy, as the Bible
says, that sticketh closer than a brother. And they'll be next
door when Durnmelling is mine! But I can sell it."
"If he _should_ come to you, will you tell him the truth?"
"I don't know that. It might spoil my own little game."
"Will you let him think me a liar and slanderer?"
"No, by Jove! I won't do that. I don't promise to tell him all
the truth, or even that what I do tell him shall be exactly true;
but I won't let him think ill of my little puritan; that would
spoil _your_ game. Ta, ta!"
He went out, with his curious grin, amused, and enjoying the idea
of a proud fellow like that being taken in with Sepia.
"I hope devoutly he'll marry her!" he said to himself as he went
to his luncheon. "Then I shall hold a rod over them both, and
perhaps buy that miserable little Thornwick. Mortimer would give
the skin off his back for it.
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