Except, perhaps, by one person: Captain Arthur Woodford.

I had consigned the first dance after supper to the gallant Captain. As the supper-room crowd began to thin, I looked about for his battle-scarred figure. He was so much the object of the ladies' attention — single men of excellent family and a respectable commission being hardly thick upon the ground — that I was surprised to find him deserted by the fair sex. He stood, rather, in the closest conversation with Mr. Edward Bridges.

My first assumption — that the two had made up their quarrel — was swiftly dispelled. Mr. Bridges hardly looked easy; he was awkward in his stance, and white about the mouth; while the Captain, whose words were too discreet to be overheard, spoke with a vehemence that argued some heat. On catching sight of me, however, he broke off abruptly, and parted from the curate without the slightest farewell. Mr. Bridges fairly flung himself from the room, as tho' all the imps of Satan were upon him.

“I have not forgot you, Miss Austen, as you see,” the Captain cried.

“I am gratified, Captain, that the French have not monopolised all your attention,” I returned with a curtsey. “I thought you should have been despatched to the coast, to talk peace or exchange prisoners, as the occasion demanded; and yet here I find you, as fine and easy as tho' Buonaparte had never been born!”

“Lord Forbes should choose poorly in sending me to the coast, Miss Austen,” he replied, “for I never talk peace, particularly in French, and I rarely take prisoners.” He bowed, and held out his arm; I slipped my own beneath it, and allowed him to lead me to the floor.

“You despise the French language? Then I suppose you have been denied the acquaintance of the Comte de Penfleur,” I said as we took our places in the line of couples. A poor command of Mrs. Grey's native tongue might have inhibited the Captain's intimacy with the lady — and surely precluded him from having authored the letter concealed in La Nouvelle Heloise.

“I was so fortunate as to make the gentleman's acquaintance this morning, on a visit of condolence to The Larches,” Woodford replied, “but happily, his English is most accomplished.”

“And have you made it a policy to abhor an enemy tongue?”

“I have kicked my heels twice in a French prison, Miss Austen, awaiting the necessary exchange,” he replied, “and on both occasions, my lamentable efforts at the mastery of French were the despair of my captors.[24] Indeed, I was returned to England post-haste that they might no longer have the burden of hearing me — and thus have never felt compelled to augment the lack.”

I laughed at him then, and abused his stupidity like the coquettish Miss I presumed to affect; and wondered all the while whether the Captain might be believed. A man who had endured the tedium of capture, in the company of French officers of equal rank (for so Wood-ford presumably was housed), should hardly have failed to learn something of the language. Was this a subterfuge, intended for the benefit of the Justice's sister? Had the Captain written the interesting letter, and suggested a flight to Pegwell Bay? And had his friend Mr. Grey discovered the whole, and murdered his wife in a jealous rage?

I could not determine whether Captain Woodford was the sort of man to make love to his oldest friend's wife; or to shield that friend, in a matter of murder. But perhaps he knew nothing of Francoise Grey's end — perhaps he merely suspected her husband guilty of a horror — and hoped that Denys Collingforth might hang for all their sins.

But I had been too long silent; it was not done, in the midst of a dance; and so I clutched at the thread of our conversation.

“And what did you think of the Comte de Penfleur?”

The Captain's countenance turned, if anything, too careful. “He is all right in his way, I suppose — for a Frenchman.”

I laughed in delight. “So much praise for an enemy, from a captain of His Majesty's Guards, may be termed a veritable encomium! And may I ask, sir, upon what grounds this weighty judgement was formed?”

“A little conversation only, I confess. I conveyed my sentiments of condolence, of course — assured the Comte of my affectionate respect for the late departed — and expressed my outrage at the manner of her death. He was almost overcome at such a demonstration of goodwill— I saw the tears start out in his eyes, Miss Austen — and could not speak for several moments. But he then assured me that he bore the people of Canterbury no ill-will on account of the murder; that such shocking episodes might be met with daily in the streets of Paris, and one accepted one's Fate as it was served. We exchanged a few pleasantries — the dry weather, the state of the roads — and then I took myself off.” He hesitated. “I pray you will not relate what I have said to any of my colleagues, particularly my commanding officer. Lord Forbes should be most put out, was he aware I had met with a Frenchman recently disembarked from the Channel, and yet had failed to learn the state of the French flotilla from his very lips. I could not think it likely, however, that the Comte had observed anything to the purpose — he had crossed in the night — and I did not like to encroach upon his mourning.”

“I admire your delicacy of feeling, Captain,” I murmured. “It must be unusual in a seasoned campaigner. You were at The Larches some little while, I collect?”

“Not at all,” he replied hastily, as tho' to admit otherwise might be to court censure. “I had not been sitting with Mr. Grey a quarter-hour when the Comte arrived, and in considerable style, too — a coach and four, shipped over from Calais, with liveried servants mounted behind. After the exchange of remarks I have already recounted, I thought it best to make my adieux and leave them together; Grey was very much put out, I believe, at the Comte's descent upon the place. He had not been taught to look for it.”

If Mr. Grey had murdered Francoise, he should hardly welcome a visitation from the Penfleurs. Questions impossible of answer might well be asked, and the comfortable resolution the widower desired, tediously deferred.

“I had not understood that Mr. Grey was on poor terms with his late wife's family,” I hazarded.

Captain Woodford would have shrugged, I think, but for the movement of the dance. As it was, he half-began the gesture, and arrested it only awkwardly. I suppressed a smile. Many a gallant fellow may move without hesitation on horseback, and be completely undone by a line of couples. “I should say rather that he was disconcerted, Miss Austen. He had had no word of the Comte's intentions. Are you at all acquainted with Mr. Grey?”

“I am not.”

“He dislikes surprises acutely, and has done so from a boy. The pleasure of an event is never increased, he says, and the inconvenience must be considerable.”

“Then he is a man of whose sense I must approve,” I said. “But perhaps the Comte prefers to disconcert. I have observed him to effect it on several occasions this evening.”

“His adoptive sister was much the same,” the Captain replied; and not without a wry amusement. It was the first instance of real feeling I had glimpsed through Woodford's facade, and it intrigued me greatly. Here was the affection that he had professed so carefully; here was the regret I had half-expected.

“I observe that you are wearing a black armband, Captain. I commend you for it,” I said. “Mrs. Grey may have found more champions in death than she ever claimed in life, but the sincere among us shall always know her true friends.”

“Thank you,” he returned quietly, “but you do me too great honour. I was less Mrs. Grey's friend than perhaps she deserved — or certainly, than she had reason to expect. I believe I thought always of Grey before his wife; and the claims of one friendship may have superseded the other.”