The Ladies Lindores, Volume 3 (of 3)

Book excerpt: Example in this ebook CHAPTER XXXII. Left to themselves, Millefleurs and Beaufort stood opposite to each other for a moment with some embarrassment. To have anything to do with a quarrel is always painful for the third person; and it was so entirely unexpected, out of the way of all his habits, that Beaufort felt himself exceptionally incapable of dealing with it. "Millefleurs," he said with hesitation, "I don't understand all this. That was a very strange tone to take in speaking to—a friend." He felt for the first time like a tutor discharging an uncomfortable office, knowing that it must be done, yet that he was not the man to do it, and that of all the youthful individuals in the world, the last person to be so lectured was Millefleurs. "Naturally you think so. The circumstances make all the difference, don't you know," said Millefleurs, with his ordinary composure. "And the situation. In 'Frisco it might not have been of any great consequence. Helping a bully out of the world is not much of a crime there. But then it's never hushed up. No one makes a secret of it: that is the thing that sets one's blood up, don't you know. Not for Torrance's sake—who, so far as I can make out, was a cad—or poor Lady Car's, to whom it's something like a deliverance——" "Torrance!" cried Beaufort, with a gasp. "Lady—Car! Do you mean to say——" "Then——" said Millefleurs, "he never told you? That is a curious piece of evidence. They do things straightforward in Denver City—not like that. He never spoke of an event which had made the country ring——" "Torrance!" repeated Beaufort, bewildered. The world seemed all to reel about him. He gazed at his companion with eyes wide opened but scarcely capable of vision. By-and-by he sat down abruptly on the nearest chair. He did not hear what Millefleurs was saying. Presently he turned to him, interrupting him unconsciously. "Torrance!" he repeated; "let there be no mistake. You mean the man—to whom Carry—Lady Caroline—was married?" Millefleurs fixed upon him his little keen black eyes. He recalled to himself tones and looks which had struck him at the moment, on which he had not been able to put any interpretation. He nodded his head without saying anything. He was as keen after any piece of human history as a hound on a scent. And now he was too much interested, too eager for new information, to speak. "And it happened," said Beaufort, "on Thursday—on the day I arrived?" He drew a long breath to relieve his breast, then waved his hand. "Yes; if that is all, Erskine told me of it," he said. "You have something to do with them also, old fellow," said Millefleurs, patting him on the shoulder. "I knew there was something. Come along and walk with me. I must see it out; but perhaps we had better not meet again just now—Erskine and I, don't you know. Perhaps I was rude. Come along; it is your duty to get me out of harm's way. Was there anything remarkable, by the way, in the fact that this happened just when you arrived?" To be continue in this ebook