seemed to have at last recovered from the shock, told the entirely indifferent Pollyooly that if she behaved very nicely during the next three days, she would not tell the duke of her escapade at Waterloo. But had Pollyooly behaved like a Borgia during those three days, Mrs. Hutton would not have told of it, for she would have got into serious trouble herself for letting her charge give her the slip. Indeed, she would certainly have been discharged.
In this way it came about that neither the Duke of Osterley nor Lady Salkeld, the widowed sister who kept house for him, knew that there had been any break in the continuity of their possession of Marion; and Miss Marlow, Marion's governess, enjoyed an equal ignorance.
Pollyooly enjoyed the drive in the motor-car from the station to the court even more than the railway journey. But for all her wonted courage, she went up the broad steps and into the great hall on faltering feet.
Only a butler and footman were in it; and they looked at her with careless eyes. If they had been men of any observation, they would have been surprised by the behavior of the half-dozen dogs of
