as betrayed by Mrs. Marsett; and the woman's tone, as of strung wires
ringing on a rage of the wind. Then followed her cry for the man who
could speak to Captain Marsett of his duty in honour. An image of one,
accompanying the faster beats of her heart, beguiled her to think away
from the cause. He, the one man known to her, would act the brother's
part on behalf of the hapless creature.

Nesta just imagined her having supplicated him, and at once imagination
came to dust. She had to thank him she knelt to him. For the first
time of her life she found herself seized with her sex's shudder in the
blood.

CHAPTER XXXV. IN WHICH AGAIN WE MAKE USE OF THE OLD LAMPS FOR LIGHTING
AN ABYSMAL DARKNESS

And if Nesta had looked out of her carriage-window soon after the train
began to glide, her eagle of imagination would have reeled from the
heights, with very different feelings, earlier, perhaps a captive, at
sight of the tardy gentleman rushing along the platform, and bending ear
to the footman Perrin, and staring for one lost.

The snaky tail of the train imparted to Dudley an apprehension of the
ominous in his having missed her. It wound away, and left regrets, which
raised a chorus of harsh congratulations from the opposite party of his
internal parliament.

Neither party could express an opinion without rousing the other to an
uproar.

He had met his cousin Southweare overnight. He had heard, that there was
talk of Miss Radnor. Her name was in the mouth of Major Worrell. It
was coupled with the name of Mrs. Marsett. A military captain, in the
succession to be Sir Edward Marsett, bestowed on her the shadow of his
name.

It could be certified, that Miss Radnor visited the woman at her house.
What are we to think of Miss Radnor, save that daughters of depraved
parents!... A torture undeserved is the Centaur's shirt for driving
us to lay about in all directions. He who had swallowed so much--a
thunderbolt: a still undigested discharge from the perplexing heavens
jumped frantic under the pressure upon him of more, and worse. A girl
getting herself talked of at a Club! And she of all young ladies should
have been the last to draw round her that buzz of tongues. On such a
subject!--The parents pursuing their career of cynical ostentation in
London, threw an evil eye of heredity on their offspring in the egg;
making anything credible, pointing at tendencies.

An alliance with her was impossible. So said disgust. Ang