“K. M.”
“K. M.”
“K. M.”
“K. M.”
A paper fluttered forth and fell to the ground. Bromley picked it up. It was folded, flimsy as a bank-note. He opened it. It was headed with the image and superscription of Madame Mélanie. Below were items representing a total of £27, 4s. 8d.
“Hear, hear! Well, you’ve not lost much time, Mr Bromley,” said the doctor, as Bromley entered the room where he was resuming his interrupted meal.
“How have you found Miss Constance?”
“I can say nothing till to-morrow. However, I do not think there is much to fear. Lady Coxe will do all I tell her. I gave her a quietus, by informing her I knew of all her difficulties. It rather relieved her, I think.Experimentum periculosum. It succeeded, however.”
“One glass of wine?Lætificat cor hominis.”
“Thank you, I have not yet dined.”
“Well, I’ll ask you again—the third time of asking, and you’ll take one. Three scruples make one dram! Ho, ho! Hear, hear!”
He poured out a bumper of burgundy, and motioned his young friend to proceed.
“Since leaving you, my suspicions have been confirmed.” Bromley showed the letter, and told Dr Leadbitter the whole story.
“Hear, hear, young man,” said the doctor, as his young friend finished. “The disease is plainer than the remedy.”
“The sum is very large, or I could manage it.”
“I should not allow Constance to pay her—at least for some time. I am an old man. You are a young one. I should not wonder if there were some few figures in my favour at Coutts’s. Sir Jehoshaphat is an old friend of mine—as honourable a man as ever lived. Good digestion, though bilious. I should like to break the force of the blow.”
Sir Jehoshaphat Coxe sallied forth the next morning with a heavy heart and a glowing brow.
He marched down Grosvenor Street slowly. At length he reached the house of Madame Mélanie.
With stately steps, and firm determination, he walked up the stairs, and entered the room of the dressmaker. She received him with a curtsy and a smile.
“Woman!” he burst out, “I hear you have profited by the folly of an old woman and the imprudence of a young one. Give me the bills of my wife and daughter that I may pay them.”
“They owe me nothing, Monsieur.”
“What, woman! do you still carry on the farce? They themselves have told me of this.”
“They owe me nothing, Sir Jehoshaphat. Their bills were paid an hour since.”
“By whom?”
“By Mr Augustus Bromley.”
The sequel is well known to my readers. Mr Bromley espoused Miss Constance. He has been standing for a county, and the result of the poll is expected by telegraph this evening.
Madame Mélanie having, in a moment of forgetfulness, returned to her old habits, and abstracted a small casket from the house of one of her customers, is expiating her crimes in a spot set aside for such purposes. Count Rabelais has disappeared from the social horizon, and is supposed to be gaining an honest livelihood as a courier.
Madame Carron, under the advice of Dr Leadbitter, laid aside her family pride, and married a very respectable impresario, who turns her talents to advantage, and lays by her earnings for that rainy day to which managers more than ordinary mortals are liable. Lady Coxe will not contract any more debts, though she still nourishes a partiality for port. Florence married on the same day as her sister, and Letitia seems likely to justify the surmise of Count Rabelais, by blessing the hearth of Mr Whiting.