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live at the Priory, were repressed. They were told that  they were too young to understand, and that there was no need for them to think about him, much  less talk about him: it was to be feared that his lordship was not a   good   man; and now that  was  quite enough, and they might run away and play.
    That was what Miss Poddemore told Venetia and Conway, and they naturally speculated  on the possible (and often impossible) nature of his lordship‟s crimes, rapidly creating a figure of  lurid romance out  of Miss Poddemore‟s mysterious utterances. It was years before Venetia  discovered that Damerel‟s villainy included nothing as startling as murder, treason, piracy, or  highroad robbery, and was more sordid than romantic. The only child of rather elderly parents,
    he had no sooner embarked on a diplomatic career than he fell head over ears in love with a  married lady of title, and absconded with her, thus wrecking his own future, breaking his mama‟s  heart, and causing his papa to suffer a paralytic stroke, from which he never entirely recovered.  Indeed, as it was succeeded, three years later, by a second and fatal stroke it was not too much to  say that the shocking affair had actually killed him. All mention of his heir had been forbidden in  his household; and  after his death his relict, who seemed to Venetia to have had a marked affinity  with Sir Francis Lanyon, lived in semi-seclusion in London, visiting the Yorkshire estates only at  rare intervals. As for the new Lord Damerel, though many were the rumours about his
    subsequent actions no one really knew what had happened to him, for his scandalous behaviour  had coincided with the short-lived Peace of Amiens, and he had spirited his stolen lady out of the  country. All that was thereafter known about her was that her husband had refused to divorce
    her. For how long she had remained with her lover, where they had fled when the war broke out  again, and what had been her ultimate fate were problems about which there were many  conjectures. The most popular of these was that .she had been cast off by her lover, and left to
    fall a prey to Bonaparte‟s ravening soldiers; which, as the villagers did not fail to point out to  their erring daughters, was what she deserved, and the sort of thing that was bound to befall any  girl careless of her virtue.

    Whatever the truth might be, one thing was sure: the lady was not with Damerel when he returned to England, some years later. Since that date he appeared (if only half the stories told of him were true) to have devoted himself to the pursuit of all the more extravagant forms of diversion, going a considerable way towards dissipating what had once been a handsome fortune, and neglecting no opportunity that offered to convince his critics that he was every bit as black as he had been painted. Until the previous year his occasional visits to the Priory had been too brief to allow any of his neighbours to do more than catch sight of him, and very few had even done that. But he had spent one whole week at the Priory in August, under perfectly outrageous circumstances. He had not come alone; he had brought a party of guests with him—and   such a party! They had come for the races, of course: Damerel had had a horse running in one of them.  Poor Imber, the old butler who had been caretaker at the Priory for years, had been thrown into the greatest affliction, for never had such a fast, ramshackle set of persons been entertained at the  Priory! As for Mrs. Imber, when she had discovered that she was expected to cook for several rackety bucks and for three females whom she recognized at a glance for what they were, she had declared her intention of leaving the Priory rather than so demean herself. Only her devotion to the Family had induced her to relent, and bitterly did she regret it, when (as might have been expected) none of the villagers would permit their daughters to go to work in