Naseby; on his mother's, true to the heathen, by following his impulses
--sacred to primitive man, justified by spear, arrow, and a strong arm.
Why sheet home this as a scandal? How did they--the libellers--know but
that he had married the girl? Exactly. He would see to that. He would
play his game with open sincerity now. He could have wished secrecy for
Delia Gasgoyne, and for his grandfather and grandmother,--he was not
wilfully brutal,--but otherwise he had no shame at all; he would stand
openly for his right. Better one honest passion than a life of deception
and miserable compromise. A British M.P.?--He had thrown away his
reputation, said the papers. By this? The girl was no man's wife, he
was no woman's husband!

Marry her? Yes, he would marry her; she should be his wife. His people?
It was a pity. Poor old people--they would fret and worry. He had been
selfish, had not thought of them? Well, who could foresee this outrage
of journalism? The luck had been dead against him. Did he not know
plenty of men in London--he was going to say the Commons, but he was
fairer to the Commons than it, as a body, would be to him--who did much
worse? These had escaped: the hunters had been after him. What would he
do? Take the whip? He got to his feet with an oath. Take the whip?
Never--never! He would fight this thing tooth and nail. Had he come to
England to let them use him for a sensation only--a sequence of
surprises, to end in a tragedy, all for the furtive pleasure of the
British breakfast-table? No, by the Eternal! What had the first Gaston
done? He had fought--fought Villiers and others, and had held up his
head beside his King and Rupert till the hour of Naseby.

When the summer was over he would return to Paris, to London. The
journalist--punish him? No; too little--a product of his time. But
the British people he would fight, and he would not give up Ridley Court.