when papa goes away; and last night she talked to Lord Mohun for ever
so long, and sent us out of the room, and cried when we came back, and----"

"D----n!" cried out my Lord Castlewood, out of all patience. "Go out of the
room, you little viper!" and he started up and flung down his cards.

"Ask Lord Mohun what I said to him, Francis," her ladyship said, rising up
with a scared face, but yet with a great and touching dignity and candour
in her look and voice. "Come away with me, Beatrix." Beatrix sprung up
too; she was in tears now.

"Dearest mamma, what have I done?" she asked. "Sure I meant no harm." And
she clung to her mother, and the pair went out sobbing together.

"I will tell you what your wife said to me, Frank," my Lord Mohun
cried--"Parson Harry may hear it; and, as I hope for heaven, every word I
say is true. Last night, with tears in her eyes, your wife implored me to
play no more with you at dice or at cards, and you know best whether what
she asked was not for your good."

"Of course it was, Mohun," says my lord, in a dry hard voice. "Of course,
you are a model of a man: and the world knows what a saint you are."

My Lord Mohun was separated from his wife, and had had many affairs of
honour: of which women as usual had been the cause.

"I am no saint, though your wife is--and I can answer for my actions as
other people must for their words," said my Lord Mohun.

"By G----, my lord, you shall," cried the other, starting up.

"We have another little account to settle first, my lord," says Lord
Mohun. Whereupon Harry Esmond, filled with alarm for the consequences to
which this disastrous dispute might lead, broke out into the most vehement
expostulations with his patron and his adversary. "Gracious Heavens!" he
said, "my lord, are you going to draw a sword upon your friend in your own
house? Can you doubt the honour of a lady who is as pure as Heaven, and
would die a thousand times rather than do you a wrong? Are the idle words
of a jealous child to set friends at variance? Has not my mistress, as
much as she dared to, besought your lordship, as the truth must be told,
to break your intimacy with my Lord Mohun; and to give up the habit which
may bring ruin on your family? But for my Lord Mohun's illness, had he not
left you?"

"Faith, Frank, a man with a gouty toe can't run after other men's wives,"
broke out my Lord Mohun, who indeed was in that way, and with a laugh and
a look at his swathed lim