England was excited, and London was more excited still. But Spilsborough was the most excited of them all. How it came out, no one knew, but the fact that the bishop was hunting for Lady Penelope Brading, who was married, who was unmarried, who had an infant which was black, which was white, which was adopted, was blazed all over that quiet episcopal town. Dean Briggs was very much annoyed, for the cathedral was no longer the centre of interest in the place. The clergy and the choir and the beadles and the tradesmen all discussed Lady Penelope. They stood in knots and fought and wrangled and argued till they were metaphorically black in the face. The lovers were pursued by gangs of boys who knew their names, and expected them to fight when they met, and followed them around in the hope of making a ring for them. All the world was aware that the duchess was at the palace. As a result, every one called there who was on terms with the bishop. It is not at all surprising that rumour ran fast, east and west and south and north. It is not every day that a quiet cathedral town is the centre of a vast social cyclone. Boston and Spalding had their eyes on Spilsborough. Boston knew that the bishop had made an unepiscopal visitation there with a white-haired peer. Spilsby heard of it, and was jealous. Spilsby talked of it and began to wonder who the young married lady at the Moat House was. Spilsby wondered slowly. In Lincolnshire things move slowly. Lincolnshire is not fast. Folks there are rooted to the soil; they consider matters firmly and stolidly. And of course it has to be remembered that they belong to the see of Lincoln and do not think very much of Spilsborough. Spilsborough was all very well, no doubt, but Lincoln was older and finer and much more wonderful. Nevertheless, though the Lincolnshire folks are slow, they get there at last. It was all very well for Penelope to call herself Mrs. Bramwell. The Spilsby people began to see through the matter. In another month they would have solved the problem, and would have given away the solution by calling Mrs. Bramwell "Your ladyship." But this was not to be, for when Geordie came back from Boston, he went to Bob at once.
"Mr. Robert, the gaff is pretty nigh blowed," he said, earnestly.
"Is it?" asked Bob.
"Safe as houses," said Geordie. "I've my suspicions that the whole show is up the spout, or very nigh up!"
"You don't say so?" said Bob.
"Blimy, but I do say it," replied Geordie. "I saw that gaitered josser, the bishop, at Boston this very afternoon. Her ladyship will be spoofed and smelt out. Some one is givin' the game away. I don't trust that bishop."
"No more do I," said Bob. "He's very mean, Geordie. He encouraged me to follow you so that I could tell them where my cousin was."
"Bah!" said Geordie, "and they call him a bishop! Her ladyship wishes not to be found out, and she sha'n't be—by a bishop. I own I don't understand her ladyship's idea."
"I do," said Bob. "Suppose some one said you couldn't do something, Geordie, a hundred miles an hour for instance."
Geordie shook his head.
"I'd show 'em!"
"And that you wouldn't after you said you would."
"I'd show 'em," repeated Geordie.
"And that you shouldn't?"
"Shouldn't be damned, beggin' your pardon, Mr. Robert. I'd show 'em!"
"That's my cousin's idea," said Bob.
"And a dashed good idea, too," said Geordie. "I hate interferin' folks worse than policemen. I'd tell her ladyship about this here bishop. And Lord Bradstock was with him, sir."
"The devil!" said Bob, and he ran to Penelope bawling.
"I say, Pen, you'll have to go," he roared, bursting into the room where Pen was lamenting over her many griefs. "The bishop is after you. Geordie's seen him and Bradstock, too. And I feel quite certain that all of 'em will be at Spilsborough now."
"I won't go," sniffed Pen.
"Oh, but you must," said Bob. "You can't be caught here now by the whole lot."
"I don't seem to care," said Penelope.
"Oh, what rot!" cried Bob. "You won't break down now, Pen, just in the middle of the game. I mean in the middle of your idea. Just think how they'll crow over you and the baby."
That roused Penelope.
"They—they sha'n't!"
"Well, they will, unless you've got the one you are married to here," said Bob. "Or are you going to tell me who it is?"
Pen snuffled sadly.
"How can I when we've q-quarrelled?" she demanded.
"Then we'll start at once," said Bob. "I'll tell Miss Mackarness and Tim and all of 'em, and we'll get your car and mine and we'll go somewhere else."
"But where?" asked Pen.
"What rot!" said Bob. "You've got heaps of houses; any of 'em that are deserted. Upwell Castle will do."
"So it will," said Penelope, helplessly. "But we can't go to-day, Bob. Baby is always asleep at this hour. Can't it be to-morrow?"
Bob shook his head.
"It's very dangerous, with the bishop on our track," he said; "it's very dangerous. He's very determined, except in motor-cars. In motor-cars, going fast, he's not at all determined. But out of 'em he's a terror. I'd go to-day."
"No, no, to-morrow," said Penelope, weeping.
And Bob went away.
"I wish Baker was here," he said. "Baker is quite as determined as the bishop, and his advice would be very valuable. I wish I knew how to treat Gordon. I'm afraid he'll be angry. If he's angry, he may keep my money. Well, I don't care."
He told Miss Mackarness to pack up, and Miss Mackarness said she would. Miss Mackarness remarked that the world was not what she had imagined it when she was young. It had in fact come to an end. She said she was not surprised at anything and never would be again. She said she had never been in a motor-car, but wanted to be in one, because death seemed quick and easy in a motor-car. She also said that if she escaped, and Lady Penelope was killed, she knew of a good opening in a lunatic asylum for a woman without nerves, who could not be surprised, and had been accustomed to the ways of the highest society.
"Oh, yes, yes; we'll be ready," said Miss Mackarness. And Bob went away to instruct Geordie and Timothy Bunting, and he spent the whole afternoon, covered with dirty oil, dancing about the two motor-cars, while Geordie put them into first-class trim.
"We ain't going to be run to ground by a bishop," said Bob.
"Not much we ain't, sir," said Tim. "I'd sooner go in one of these machines, so I would."
It was the first time he had ever said as much, and Geordie paid him a compliment from under the car.
"That's the first sensible remark I've ever heard you make, Tim," said the concealed chauffeur.
"Thank you," said Timothy. "I always said you were a good chap, Geordie, even if you was wrapped up in muck and grease." And an idea came to Bob.
"I know what I'll do about Gordon," he said. "I'll write something about this now so's to show it him afterward."
He wrote:
"Pen is very sad. I fear she has quarrelled with Gordon. I'm sure she has married Gordon. I wish she would let me send to him to come, but she has sworn me not to. I think the baby is very like Gordon. It is clever like him, only, being younger, not so clever. I don't mind if it is Gordon. Gordon has been very kind to me, knowing how poor the family is. I wish I was as clever as he is."
He read it over carefully.
"He's more jealous of Rivaulx than any one. I'll put something in about him."
He added:
"I think Rivaulx an ass because of balloons."
"That will please Gordon," said Bob, as he stowed his note-book away. "But I do wish I knew who it is. Women are very fond of secrets. They seem to like babies and secrets best. Pen likes both together, and it's very confusing to any one."
They started next morning in the two cars for Upwell Castle, taking the whole household. Bob installed an old villager and his wife as caretakers. He had selected them himself on the ground that they seemed the stupidest people in the village. Bob was very clever, if not so clever as Gordon.
"I think we've spoofed 'em, Pen," said Bob.
Penelope hugged her baby and wept.
"Why are you crying?" asked Bob.
"I don't know," said Penelope.
"Then don't," said Bob. "It makes me very uncomfortable."
They devoured space, and Timothy held on to the car and to Miss Mackarness. Miss Mackarness said it altered her ideas. Tim said it didn't, but then he was very conservative.
"Now, let 'em all come," said Bob.