Why should I be? I have the baby, and Sir Stuart
and Mrs. Villiers are both goodness itself to me."
"Florence is not looking very well. Don't you think a week at the
seashore would do her good?"
"I wish she could go, poor girl. When I think of her, I say to myself
that I have no right to be unhappy. If Quincy is dead, he died nobly,
to save others. But the shame connected with Captain Hornaby is what
Florence feels so deeply."
That same day Aunt Ella wrote to Linda that she was coming with
Florence, and that Algernon and she must arrange in some way to bring
about that "explanation."
Algernon, Earl of Sussex, and the Countess Linda lived at Ellersleigh
in the County of Sussex, not many miles from historic Hastings. To
Aunt Ella and Florence they extended a warm and heartfelt welcome,
and Florence, used as she was to the luxuries of life, could not but
marvel at the beauty and even splendour that surrounded the Countess--
once an American country girl named Linda Putnam.
"I have sent out cards for a dinner party next Thursday," said Linda
to Aunt Ella. "There will be an opportunity for that 'explanation,'
but you must assume the responsibility if there should be a tragic
ending."
"We must hope for the best," replied Aunt Ella. "I will gather up the
fragments after the explosion."
From the expression on Florence's face, when Sir Wilfred Hornaby and
Captain Reginald Hornaby were announced as guests, the explosion
seemed imminent.
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