brother should return inopportunely, though that's scarcely probable.
Obedient devils, you observe, Anastasia,--devils who exert and check their
deviltry as I bid 'em, for they esteem me Lucifer's lieutenant. And I grant
the present situation is an outrage to propriety, yet the evil is not
incurable. Lady Allonby may not, if she value her reputation, pass to-night
at Stornoway; but here am I, all willingness, and upstairs is the parson.
Believe me, Anastasia, the most vinegarish prude could never object to Lady
Rokesle's spending to-night at Stornoway."

"Let me think, let me think!" Lady Allonby said, and her hands plucked now
at her hair, now at her dress. She appeared dazed. "I can't think!" she
wailed on a sudden. "I am afraid. I--O Vincent, Vincent, you cannot do
this thing! I trusted you, Vincent. I know I let you make love to me, and
I relished having you make love to me. Women are like that. But I cannot
marry you, Vincent. There is a man, yonder in England, whom I love. He does
not care for me any more,--he is in love with my step-daughter. That is
very amusing, is it not, Vincent? Some day I may be his mother-in-law. Why
don't you laugh, Vincent? Come, let us both laugh--first at this and then
at the jest you have just played on me. Do you know, for an instant, I
believed you were in earnest? But Harry went to sleep over the cards,
didn't he? And Mrs. Morfit has gone to bed with one of her usual headaches?
Of course; and you thought you would retaliate upon me for teasing you. You
were quite right, 'Twas an excellent jest. Now let us laugh at it. Laugh,
Vincent! Oh!" she said now, more shrilly, "for the love of God, laugh,
laugh!--or I shall go mad!"

But Lord Rokesle was a man of ice, "Matrimony is a serious matter,
Anastasia; 'tis not becoming in those who are about to enter it to exhibit
undue levity. I wonder what's keeping Simon?"