over, saving your presence, a woman of the sort one looks to find in
that abominable hole. And so, as I was saying, this other drunken rascal
dug a knife into him--"

But now, to Captain Musgrave's discomfort, Cynthia Allonby had begun to
weep heartbrokenly.

So he cleared his throat, and he patted the back of her hand. "It is a
great shock to you, naturally--oh, most naturally, and does you great
credit. But come now, Pevensey is gone, as we must all go some day, and
our tears cannot bring him back, my dear. We can but hope he is better
off, poor fellow, and look on it as a mysterious dispensation and that
sort of thing, my dear--"

"Oh, Ned, but people are so cruel! People will be saying that it was I
who kept poor Cousin George in London this past two weeks, and that but
for me he would have been in France long ago. And then the Queen,
Ned!--why, that pig-headed old woman will be blaming it on me, that
there is nobody to prevent that detestable French King from turning
Catholic and dragging England into new wars, and I shall not be able to
go to any of the court dances! nor to the masque!" sobbed Cynthia, "nor
anywhere!"

"Now you talk tender-hearted and angelic nonsense. It is noble of you to
feel that way, of course. But Pevensey did not take proper care of
himself, and that is all there is to it. Now I have remained in London
since the Plague's outbreak. I stayed with my regiment, naturally. We
have had a few deaths, of course. People die everywhere. But the Plague
has never bothered me. And why has it never bothered me? Simply because
I was sensible, took the pains to consult an astrologer, and by his