What could she say, whom could she accuse, because a piece of rotten wood had given away.
She started on her pillow.

It was a piece of rotten wood which had fallen from the balustrade upon the stairs, to be seen and picked up by Jane just before she would have passed down on her way to dinner.

And yet, what would she appear to her husband, to Lady Maria, to anyone in the decorous world, if she told them that she believed that in a dignified English household, an English gentleman, even a deposed heir presumptive, was working out a subtle plot against her such as might adorn a melodrama?
She held her head in her hands as her mind depicted to her Lord Walderhurst's countenance, Lady Maria's dubious, amused smile.
"She would think I was hysterical," she cried, under her breath.

"He would think I was vulgar and stupid, that I was a fussy woman with foolish ideas, which made him ridiculous.

Captain Os-born is of his family.