"Thank you, Lord Castleton is kind enough to let me go."

(They get into the carriage.)

"And how do you find yourself now, my dear Lucy?" tenderly inquired
Castleton, as the carriage drove off.

"Oh, I am quite well, thank you."

"Quite well! are you? What was it, then, that was the matter with you?"

"There was nothing the matter with me, it was that woman."

"What woman? what can you mean? Did you not say that you were ill; and
was not that the reason that we hurried away?"

"No! YOU said I was ill; and I did not contradict you, because you tell
me that in the world, as you call it, it is not always right to give the
real reason for what we do; and therefore I thought, perhaps, that
though of course you wished me to come away, you liked to put it upon my
being ill."

"Of course I wished you to come away! I was never more unwilling to move
in all my life; and nothing but consideration for your health would have
induced me to stir. Why should I have wished you to come away?"

"Why, the naked woman," stammered Lucy.

"What can you mean?"