Had Monmouth, the notorious libertine, been to Lupton House and persecuted her with his addresses?
"Is it that you are acquainted with His Grace ?" he asked.
"I have never spoken to him!" she answered, with no suspicion of what was in his thoughts.
In his relief he laughed, remembering now that Monmouth's affairs were too absorbing just at present to leave him room for dalliance.
"But you are standing," said he, and he advanced a chair.

"I deplore that I have no better hospitality to offer you.

I doubt if I ever shall again.

I am told that Albemarle did me the honour to stable his knackers in my hall at Zoyland." She took the chair he offered her, sinking to it like one physically weary, a thing he was quick to notice.

He watched her, his body eager, his soul trammelling it with a steely restraint.