"Just this," she replied, with passion. "Let me never see you again.
The very foundations of my life are loosened: I have told a lie. I
have made my servant--an honorable man--an accomplice in a lie. We
are worse than you; for even your wild-beast's handiwork is a less
evil than the bringing of a falsehood into the world. This is what
has come to me out of our acquaintance. I have given you a
hiding-place. Keep it. I will never enter it again."
Cashel, appalled, shrank back with an expression such as a child
wears when, in trying to steal sweet-meats from a high shelf, it
pulls the whole cupboard down about its ears. He neither spoke nor
stirred as she left the lodge.
Finding herself presently at the castle, she went to her boudoir,
where she found her maid, the French lady, from whose indignant
description of the proceedings below she gathered that the policemen
were being regaled with bread and cheese, and beer; and that the
attendance of a surgeon had been dispensed with, Paradise's wounds
having been dressed skilfully by Mellish. Lydia bade her send
Bashville to the Warren Lodge to see that there were no strangers
loitering about it, and ordered that none of the female servants
should return there until he came back.
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