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"Alack," said he, turning to Sibyll, "even though we may escape the Tower, no boatman now can be found on the river. The way through the streets is dark and perilous, and beset with midnight ruffians." "Verily," said Warner, "the danger is past now. Let the noble demoiselle rest here till morning. The king dare not again " "Dare not!" interrupted Marmaduke. "Alas! you little know King Edward."
Marmaduke expressed, with more feeling than eloquence, the thanks he owed for an offer that, he was about to say, exceeded his hopes; but he had already, since his departure from Westmoreland, acquired sufficient wit to think twice of his words.
"I was just thinking could it be the person who has matched the silk so well. The same woman, I mean." "Oh, Nelly!" "Oh, Marian! Do you suppose Marmaduke would spend an afternoon at the Louvre with a man, who could just as well go by himself? Do men match silks?" "Of course they do. Any fly-fisher can do it better than a woman. Really, Nell, you have an odious imagination."
Marmaduke began, speaking in fragments hurriedly put together, looking steadily down on his hands, using a brief business tone just as if every syllable had not been planned by him on his way back, so that the tidings might fall most gradually on the poor wife's ear. "It was indeed the Ardente. Four sailors were picked up yesterday, in one of her boats.
But all that had been done had been done for economy, and nothing for beauty. The occupiers of Casalunga had thought more of the produce of their land than of picturesque or attractive appearance. The sun was blazing fiercely hot, hotter on this side, Sir Marmaduke thought, even than on the other; and there was not a wavelet of a cloud in the sky.
Howbeit, this reserve, to which he was accustomed, awed Marmaduke less than the alternate gayety and sadness of the wilder Sibyll, and he addressed them with all the gallantry to the exercise of which he had been reared, concluding his compliments with a declaration that he would rather forego the advantage proffered him by the earl's favour with the king, than foster one obnoxious and ungracious memory in damozels so fair and honoured.
He had, when on a visit to his English kindred, entirely turned the head of the lovely Annora Walwyn, and finding that her father, one of the gravest of Tudor statesmen, would not hear of her breaking her engagement to the honest Dorset squire Marmaduke Thistlewood, he had carried her off by a stolen marriage and coup de main, which, as her beauty, rank, and inheritance were all considerable, had won him great reputation at the gay court of Henri II.
From underneath the table he now drew forth a glass and a bottle: the latter he uncorked with slow and deliberate care, and then filled the glass with its contents, whilst Sir Marmaduke watched him with impatient eyes. "Will you join me, squire?" asked de Chavasse, as he lifted the small tumbler and gazed with marked appreciation at the glistening and transparent liquid.
Marmaduke, pleased to be of importance, had willingly satisfied their curiosity, as far as he was able, and was just about to retire to his own chamber, when the cry of Anne had made him enter the postern-door which led up the stairs to Adam's apartment, and which was fortunately not locked; and now, on returning, he had again a new curiosity to allay.
"Just ourselves," said Lady Eardham, in a melancholy tone, as though they two were doomed to eat family dinners together for ever after. "I suppose the property is really his own?" said Lady Eardham to her husband that afternoon. Sir George was a stout, plethoric gentleman, with a short temper and many troubles. Marmaduke was expensive, and Sir George himself had spent money when he was young.
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