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"And now," the voice went on, "after but a few years of marriage all her beauty lost so that none would know her! Four poor, weak girl infants she hath given birth to, and her husband, Sir Jeoffry, in a fury at the coming of each, raging that it is not an heir. Before the first came he had begun to slight her, and when 'twas born a girl he well-nigh broke her heart.
It was seldom that the coach from Wildairs Hall drew up before the lych-gate, but upon rare Sunday mornings Mistress Wimpole and her two charges contrived, if Sir Jeoffry was not in an ill-humour and the coachman was complaisant, to be driven to service.
"'Tis Mistress Clorinda, Sir Jeoffry," she stammered "my lady's last infant the one of whom she died in childbed." His big laugh broke in two, as one might say. He looked down at the young fury and stared. She was out of breath with beating him, and had ceased and fallen back apace, and was staring up at him also, breathing defiance and hatred.
"I see him;" and went pell-mell down the stone steps to his side. Sir Jeoffry followed her in haste. 'Twould not have been to his humour now to have her brains kicked out. "Hey!" he called, as he hurried. "Keep away from his heels, thou little devil."
On a wintry morning at the close of 1690, the sun shining faint and red through a light fog, there was a great noise of baying dogs, loud voices, and trampling of horses in the courtyard at Wildairs Hall; Sir Jeoffry being about to go forth a-hunting, and being a man with a choleric temper and big, loud voice, and given to oaths and noise even when in good-humour, his riding forth with his friends at any time was attended with boisterous commotion.
Her big black eyes were flames, her head was thrown up and back, her cheeks were blood scarlet, and her great crop of crow- black hair stood out about her beauteous, wicked little virago face, as if it might change into Medusa's snakes. "Damn thee!" she shrieked at him again. "I'll kill thee, devil!" Sir Jeoffry broke into his big laugh afresh. "Clorinda do they call thee, wench?" he said.
As time went by, and the years spent in drink and debauchery began to tell even on the big, strong body which should have served any other man bravely long past his threescore and ten, Sir Jeoffry drank harder and lived more wildly, sometimes being driven desperate by dulness, his coarse pleasures having lost their potency.
"She lieth huddled in a heap, staring and muttering, and she would leave me no peace till I promised to say to you, 'For the sake of poor little Daphne, whom you will sure remember. She pinched my hand and said it again and again." Sir Jeoffry dragged at his horse's mouth and swore again. "She was fifteen then, and had not given me nine yellow-faced wenches," he said.
Long-tailed petticoats from this time for me, and hoops and patches, and ogling over fans until at last, if I play my cards well, some great lord will look my way and be taken by my shape and my manners." "With thy shape, Clo, God knows every man will," laughed Sir Jeoffry, "but I fear me not with thy manners. Thou hast the manners of a baggage, and they are second nature to thee."
"'Tis the Wildairs cronies," Roxholm heard him say to his Lordship of Dunstanwolde. "I hunt but seldom, purely through disgust of their unseemliness." "Wildairs!" exclaimed my Lord Dunstanwolde. "Ay," answered Twemlow, turning his horse slightly and averting his eyes; "and there cometh my reputable kinsman, Sir Jeoffry, even as we speak."
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