After breakfast Alethia, on the pretext of going to look at an outlying
rose-garden, slipped away to the village through which they had passed on
the previous evening. She remembered that Robert had pointed out to her
a public reading-room, and here she considered it possible that she might
meet Sir John Chobham, or some one who knew him well and would carry a
message to him. The room was empty when she entered it; a _Graphic_
twelve days old, a yet older copy of _Punch_, and one or two local papers
lay upon the central table; the other tables were stacked for the most
part with chess and draughts-boards, and wooden boxes of chessmen and
dominoes. Listlessly she picked up one of the papers, the _Sentinel_,
and glanced at its contents. Suddenly she started, and began to read
with breathless attention a prominently printed article, headed "A Little
Limelight on Sir John Chobham." The colour ebbed away from her face, a
look of frightened despair crept into her eyes. Never, in any novel that
she had read, had a defenceless young woman been confronted with a
situation like this. Sir John, the Hugo of her imagination, was, if
anything, rather more depraved and despicable than Robert Bludward.
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