As Despard heard the steps coming nearer he looked round uneasily, with
a vague idea of hurrying off so as to escape observation. But when he
tried to stand up and walk, he found that anything like quick movement
was beyond him still. So he sat down again, endeavouring to look as if
nothing were the matter, and that he was merely resting.
Another moment or two, and a young man appeared, coming hastily along
the path by which Despard had himself made his way into the shrubbery.
He was quite young, two or three and twenty at most, fair, slight, and
boyish-looking. He passed by Mr Norreys with but the slightest glance
in his direction, but just as Despard was congratulating himself on
this, the new-comer stopped short, hesitated, and then, turning round
and lifting his hat, came up to him.
"Excuse me," he said, "do you know Lady Margaret--by sight? Has she
passed this way?"
He spoke quickly, and Mr Norreys did not catch the surname.
"No," he replied, "I have not the honour of the lady's acquaintance."
"I beg your pardon," said the other. "I've been sent to look for her,
and I can't find her anywhere." Then he turned, but again hesitated.
"There's nothing the matter, is there? You've not hurt yourself--or
anything? You look rather--as if a cricket ball had hit you, you know."
Mr Norreys smiled.
"Thank you," he said. "I have got a frightful pain in my head. I was
out too long in the sun this morning."
The boyish-looking man shook his head.
"Touch of sunstroke--eh? Stupid thing to do, standing in the sun this
weather. Should take a parasol; I always do. Then I can't be of any
service?"
"Yes," said Despard, as a sudden idea struck him. "If you happen to
know my sister, Mrs Selby, by sight, I'd be eternally grateful to you
if you would tell her I'm going home. I'll wait for her at the old
church, would you say?"
"Don't know her, but I'll find her out. Mrs Selby, of Markerslea, I
suppose? Well, take my advice, and keep on the shady side of the road."
"I shall go through the woods, thank you. My sister will understand."
With a friendly nod the young fellow went off.
Despard had been roused by the talk with him. He got up now and went
slowly round to the back of the house--it was a place he had known in
old days--thus avoiding all risk of coming across any of the guests. By
a path behind the stables he made his way slowly into the woods, and in
about half an hour's time he found himself where these ended at the high
road, along which his sister must pass. There was a stile near, over
which, through a field, lay a footpath to the church, known thereabouts
as the old church, and here on the stile Mr Norreys seated himself to
await Mrs Selby.
"I've managed that pretty neatly," he said, trying to imagine he was
feeling as usual. "I wonder who that fellow was. He seemed to have
heard Maddie's name though he did not know her."
He was perfectly clear in his head now, but the pain in it was racking.
He tried not to think, but in vain. Clearer, and yet more clearly,
stood out before his mind's eye the strange drama of that afternoon.
And the more he thought of it, the more he looked at it, approaching it
from every side, the more incapable he became of explaining Miss Ford's
extraordinary conduct. The indignation which had at first blotted out
almost all other feeling gradually gave way to his extreme perplexity.
"She had no sort of grounds for speaking to me as she did," he
reflected. "Accusing me vaguely of unworthy motives--what _could_ she
mean?" Then a new idea struck him. "Some one has been making
mischief," he thought: "that must be it, though what and how, I cannot
conceive. Gertrude Englewood would not do it intentionally--but still--
I saw that she was changed to me. I shall have it out with her. After
all, I hope Madeline's letter _has_ gone."
And a vague, very faint hope began to make itself felt that perhaps,
after all, all was _not_ lost. If _she_ had been utterly misled about
him--if--
He drew a deep breath, and looked round. It was the very sweetest
moment of a summer's day existence, that at which late afternoon begins
softly and silently to fade into early evening. There was an almost
Sabbath stillness in the air, a tender suggestion of night's reluctant
approach, and from where Despard sat the white headstones of some graves
in the ancient churchyard were to be seen among the grass. The man felt
strangely moved and humbled.
"If I could hope ever to win her," he thought, "I feel as if I had it in
me to be a better man--I am not _all_ selfish and worldly, Maisie--
surely not? But what has made her judge me so cruelly? It is awful to
remember what she said, and to imagine what sort of an opinion she must
have of me to have been able to say it. For--no, that was _not_ my
contemptible conceit--" and his face flushed. "She _was_ beginning to
care for me. She is too generous to have remembered vindictively my
insolence, for insolence it was, at the first. Besides, she said
herself that she had been getting to like and trust me as a friend.
Till to-day--has the change in her all come from what I said to-day? No
girl can despise a man for the fact of his caring for her--what can it
be? Good heavens, I feel as if I should go mad!"
And he wished that the pain in his head, which had somewhat subsided,
would get worse again, if only it would stop his thinking.
But just then came the sound of wheels. In another moment Mrs Selby's
pony-carriage was in sight. Despard got off his stile, and walked
slowly down the road to meet her.
"So you faithless--" she began--for, to tell the truth, she had not
attached much credence to the story which had reached her of the
frightful headache--but she changed her tone the moment she caught sight
of his face. "My poor boy, you do look ill!" she exclaimed. "I am so
sorry. I would have come away at once if I had known."
"It doesn't matter," Despard replied, as he got into the carriage; "but
did you not get my message?"
"Oh, yes; but I thought it was just that you were tired and bored. What
in the matter, dear Despard? You don't look the least like yourself."
"I fancy it was the sun this morning," he said.
"But it's passing off, I think."
Madeline felt by no means sure that it was so.
"I am so sorry," she repeated, "and so vexed with myself. Do you know
who the young man was that gave me your message?"
Despard shook his head.
"It was Mr Conrad Fforde, Lord Southwold's nephew and heir--heir at
least to the title, but to little else."
"So I should suppose," said Norreys indifferently.
"The Southwolds are very poor."
"How queer that he knew your name if you have never met him before,"
said Mrs Selby. "But I dare say it's through the Flores-Carters;
they're such great friends of mine, you know, and they are staying at
Laxter's Hill as well as the Southwold party."
"Yes," Despard agreed, "he had evidently heard of you."
"And of you too in that case. People do so chatter in the country. The
Carters are dying to get you there. They have got the Southwolds to
promise to go to them next week. They--the Carter girls--are perfectly
wild about Lady Margaret. I think it would be better taste not to make
up to her so much; it does _look_ as if it was because she was what she
is, though I know it isn't really that. They get up these fits of
enthusiasm. And she is very nice--not _very_ pretty, you know, but
wonderfully nice and unspoilt, considering."
"Unspoilt," repeated Despard. He was glad to keep his sister talking
about indifferent matters. "I don't see that poor Lord Southwold's
daughter has any reason to be spoilt."
"Oh, dear yes--didn't you know? I thought you knew everything of that
kind. It appears that she is a tremendous heiress; I forget the
figures. The fortune comes from her aunt's husband. Her mother's elder
sister married an enormously wealthy man, and as they had no children or
near relations on his side, he left all to this girl. Of course she and
her father have always known it, but it has been kept very quiet. They
have lived in the country six months of the year, and travelled the
other six. She has been most carefully brought up and splendidly
educated. But she has never been `out' in society at all till this
year."
"I never remember hearing of them in town," said Despard.
"Oh, Lord Southwold himself never goes out. He is dreadfully delicate--
heart-disease, I think. But she--Lady Margaret--will be heard of _now_.
It has all come out about her fortune now that he has come into the
title. His cousin, the last earl, only died two months ago."
"And," said Despard, with a strange sensation, as if he were listening
to some one else speaking rather than speaking himself, "till he came
into the title, what was he called? He was the last man's cousin, you
say?"
"Yes, of course; he was Mr Fforde--Fforde with two `f's' and an `e,'
you know. It's the family name of the Southwolds. That young man--the
one you spoke to--is Mr Conrad Fforde, as I told you. They say that--"
But a glance at her brother made her hesitate.
"Despard, is your head worse?" she asked anxiously.
"It comes on by fits and starts," he replied. "But don't mind; go on
speaking. What were you going to say?"
"Oh, only about young Mr Fforde. They say he is to marry Lady
Margaret; they are only second cousins. But I don't think he looks good
enough for her. She seems such a womanly, nice-feeling girl. We had
just been introduced when Mr Fforde came up with your message, and she
wanted him to go back to you at once. But he said you would be gone
already, and I--well, I didn't quite believe about your head being so
bad, and perhaps I seemed very cool about it, for Lady Margaret really
looked quite vexed. Wasn't it nice of her? The Carters had been
telling her about us evidently. I think she was rather disappointed not
to see the famous Despard Norreys, do you know? I rather wonder you
never met her this summer in town, though perhaps you would scarcely
have remarked her just as Miss Fforde, for she isn't--"
But an exclamation from Despard startled her.
"Maddie," he said, "don't you understand? It _must_ be she--she, this
Lady Margaret--the great heiress! Good heavens!"
Mrs Selby almost screamed.
"Despard!" was all she could say. But she quickly recovered herself.
"Well, after all," she went on, "I don't see that there's any harm done.
She will know that you were absolutely disinterested, and surely that
will go a long way. But--just to think of it! Oh, Despard, fancy your
saying that you half thought she was going to be a governess! Oh, dear,
_how_ extraordinary! And I that was so regretting that you had not met
her! What a good thing you did not--I mean _what_ a good thing that my
letter showing your ignorance was written and sent before you knew who
she was! Don't you see how lucky it was?"
She turned round, her eyes sparkling with excitement and eagerness. But
there was no response in Mr Norreys' face; on the contrary, its
expression was such that Mrs Selby's own face grew pale with dread.
"Despard," she said, "why do you look like that? You are not going to
say that now, because she is an heiress--just because of _money_," with
a tone of supreme contempt, "that you will give it up? You surely--"
But Mr Norreys interrupted her.
"Has the letter gone, Maddie?"
She nodded her head.
"Then I must write again at once--myself--to Gertrude Englewood to make
her promise on her honour never to tell what you wrote. Even if I
thought she would believe it--and I am not sure that she would--I could
never allow myself to be cleared in her eyes _now_."
Madeline stared at him. Had the sunstroke affected his brain?
"Despard," she said, "what do you mean?"
He turned his haggard face towards her.
"I don't know how to tell you," he said. "I wish I need not, but as you
know so much I must. I _did_ see her, Madeline. I met her when I was
strolling about the shrubbery over there. She was quite alone and no
one near. It seemed to have happened on purpose, and--I told her all."
"You proposed to her?"
He nodded.
"As--as Miss Fforde, or as--" began Mrs
Selby.
"As Miss Ford, of course, without the two `f's' and the `e' at the end,"
he said bitterly. "I didn't know till this moment either that her
father was an earl, or, which is much worse, that she was a great
heiress."
"And what is wrong, then?"
"Just that she refused me--refused me with the most biting contempt--
the--the bitterest scorn--no, I cannot speak of it. She thought I knew,
had found out about her--and now I see that my misplaced honesty, the
way I spoke, must have given colour to it. She taunted me with my
insolence at the first--good God! what an instrument of torture a
woman's tongue can be! There is only one thing to do--to stop
Gertrude's ever telling of that letter."
"Oh, Despard!" exclaimed Mrs Selby, and her eyes filled with tears.
"What a _horrid_ girl she must be! And I thought she looked so sweet
and nice. She seemed so sorry when her cousin told me about you. Tell
me, was that after? Oh, yes, of course, it must have been. Despard, I
believe she was already repenting her cruelty."
"Hush, Madeline," said Mr Norreys sternly. "You mean it well, but--you
must promise me never to allude to all this again. You will show me
Mrs Englewood's letter when it comes--that you must do, and I will
write to her. But there is no more to be said. Let to-day be between
us as if it had never been. Promise me, dear."
He laid his hand on her arm. Madeline turned her tearful eyes towards
him.
"Very well," she said. "I must, I suppose. But, oh, what a dreadful
pity it all seems. You to have fallen in love with her for herself--you
that have never really cared for any one before--when you thought her
only a governess; and now for it to have all gone wrong! It would have
been so nice and delightful."
"A sort of Lord Burleigh business, with the characters reversed--yes,
quite idyllic," said Despard sneeringly.
"Despard, don't. It does so pain me," Mrs Selby said with real
feeling. "There is one person I am furious with," she went on in a very
different tone, "and that is Mrs Englewood. She had no business to
play that sort of trick."
"Perhaps she could not help herself. You say the father--Mr Fforde as
he then was--did not wish her to be known as an heiress," said Mr
Norreys.
"She might have made an exception for you," said Madeline.
Despard's brows contracted. Mrs Selby thought it was from the pain in
his head, but it was more than that. A vision rose before him of a
sweet flushed girlish face, with gentle pleasure and appeal in the
eyes--and of Gertrude's voice, "If you don't dance, will you talk to
her? Anything to please her a little, you know."
"I think Gertrude did all she could. I believe she is a perfectly loyal
and faithful friend," he said; "but for heaven's sake, Maddie, let us
drop it for ever. I will write this evening to Gertrude myself, and
that will be the last act in the drama."
No letter, however, was written to Mrs Englewood that evening--nor the
next day, nor for that matter during the rest of the time that saw
Despard Norreys a guest at Markerslea Rectory.
And several days passed after the morning that brought her reply to Mrs
Selby's letter of inquiry, before the person it chiefly concerned was
able to see it. For the pain in his head, the result of slight
sunstroke in the first place, aggravated by unusual excitement, had
culminated in a sharp attack which at one time was not many degrees
removed from brain fever. The risk was tided over, however, and at no
time was the young man in very serious danger. But Mrs Selby suffered
quite as much as if he had been dying. She made up her mind that he
would not recover, and as her special friends received direct
information to that effect, it is not to be wondered at that the bad
news flew fast.
It reached Laxter's Hill one morning in the week following Lady
Denster's garden-party. It was the day which was to see the breaking-up
of the party assembled there to meet Lord Southwold and his daughter,
and it came in a letter to Edith Flores-Carter from Mrs Selby herself.
"Oh, dear," the girl ejaculated, her usually bright, not to say
jolly-looking countenance clouding over as she spoke, "oh, dear, I'm so
sorry for the Selbys--for Mrs Selby particularly. Just fancy, doesn't
it seem awful--her brother's dying."
She glanced round the breakfast-table for sympathy: various expressions
of it reached her.
"That fellow I found in the grounds at that place, is it?" inquired Mr
Fforde. "I'm not surprised, he did look pretty bad, and he would walk
home, and he hadn't even a parasol."
"Conrad, how _can_ you be so unfeeling? I perfectly detest that horrid
trick of joking about everything," said in sharp, indignant tones a
young lady seated opposite him. It was Lady Margaret. Several people
looked up in surprise.
"Beginning in good time," murmured a man near the end of the table.
"Why, do you believe in that? I don't," replied his companion in the
same low tone.
Conrad looked across the table at his cousin in surprise.
"Come now, Maisie," he said, "you make me feel quite shy, scolding me so
in company. And I'm sure I didn't _mean_ to say anything witty at the
poor chap's expense. If I did, it was quite by mistake I assure you."
"Anything `witty' from you would be that, I can quite believe," Lady
Margaret replied, smiling a little. But the smile was a feeble and
forced one. Conrad saw, if no one else did, that his cousin was
thoroughly put out, and he felt repentant, though he scarcely knew why.
Half an hour later Lord Southwold and his daughter were talking together
in the sitting-room, where the former had been breakfasting in invalid
fashion alone.
"I would promise to be home to-morrow, or the day after at latest,
papa," Lady Margaret was saying; "Mrs Englewood will be very pleased to
have me, I know, even at the shortest notice, for last week when I wrote
saying I feared it would be impossible, she was very disappointed."
"Very well, my dear, only don't stay with her longer than that, for you
know we have engagements," and Lord Southwold sighed a little.
Margaret sighed too.
"My darling," said her father, "don't look so depressed. I didn't mean
to grumble."
"Oh no, papa. It isn't you at all. I shall be glad to be at home
again; won't you? Thank you very much for letting me go round by town."
Mrs Englewood's drawing-room--but looking very different from the last
time we saw it. Mrs Englewood herself, with a more anxious expression
than usual on her pleasant face, was sitting by the open window, through
which, however, but little air found its way, for it was hot, almost
stifling weather.
"It is really a trial to have to come back to town before it is cooler,"
she was saying to herself, as the door opened and Lady Margaret, in
summer travelling gear, came in.
"So you are really going, dear Maisie," said her hostess. "I do wish
you could have waited another day."
"But," said Maisie, "you will let me know at once what you hear from
Mrs Selby. I cannot help being unhappy, Gertrude, and, of course, what
you have told me has made me still more self-reproachful, and--and
ashamed."
She was very pale, but a sudden burning blush overspread her face as she
said the last words.
"I do _so_ hope he will recover," she added, trying to speak lightly,
"though if he does I earnestly hope I shall never meet him again."
"Even if I succeed in making him understand _your_ side, and showing him
how generously you regret having misjudged him?" said Mrs Englewood.
"I don't see that there need be any enmity between you."
"Not _enmity_, oh no; but still less, friendship," said Maisie. "I just
_trust_ we shall never meet again. Good-bye, dear Gertrude: I am so
glad to have told you all. You will let me know what you hear?" and she
kissed Mrs Englewood affectionately.
"Good-bye, dear child. I am glad you have not a long journey before
you. Stretham will take good care of you. You quite understand that I
can do nothing indirectly--it will only be when I see him himself that I
can tell him how sorry you have been."
"Sorry and _ashamed_, be sure to say `ashamed,'" said Lady Margaret:
"yes, of course, it can only be if--if he gets better or you see him
yourself."
Two or three days later came a letter to Lady Margaret from Mrs
Englewood, inclosing one which that lady had just received from Mrs
Selby. Her brother, she allowed for the first time, was out of danger,
but "terribly weak." And at intervals during the next few weeks the
girl heard news of Mr Norreys' recovery. And "I wonder," she began to
say to herself, "I wonder if Gertrude has seen him, or will be seeing
him soon."
But this hope, if hope it should be called, was doomed to
disappointment. Late in October came another letter from her friend.
"I am sorry," wrote Mrs Englewood, "that I see no probability of my
meeting Mr Norreys for a long time. He is going abroad. After all,
your paths in life are not likely to cross each other again. Perhaps it
is best to leave things."
But the tears filled Maisie's eyes as she read. "I should have liked
him to know I had come to do him justice," she thought.
She did not understand Mrs Englewood's view of the matter.
"It would be cruel," Gertrude had said to herself, "to tell him how she
blames herself, and how my showing her Mrs Selby's letter had cleared
him. It would only bring it all up again when he has doubtless begun to
forget it."
Nevertheless, Despard did not leave England without knowing how
completely Lady Margaret had retracted her cruel words, and how bitterly
she regretted them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time passes quickly, we are told, when we are hard at work. And
doubtless this is true while the time in question is the present. But
to look back upon time of which every day and every hour have been fully
occupied, gives somewhat the feeling of a closely-printed volume when
one has finished reading it. It seems even longer than in anticipation.
To Despard Norreys, when at the end of two busy years he found himself
again in England, it appeared as if he had been absent five or six times
as long as was really the case.
He had been a week in England, and was still detained in town by details
connected with the work he had successfully accomplished. He was under
promise to his sister to run down to Markerslea the first day it should
be possible, and time meanwhile hung somewhat heavily on his hands. The
waters had already closed over his former place in society, and he did
not regret it. Still there were friends whom he was glad to meet again,
and so he not unwillingly accepted some of the invitations that began to
find him out.
One evening, after dining at the house of the friend whose influence had
obtained for him the appointment which had just expired, he accompanied
the ladies of the family to an evening party in the neighbourhood. He
had never been in the house before; the faces about him were unfamiliar.
Feeling a little "out of it," he strolled into a small room where a
select quartette was absorbed at whist, and seated himself in a corner
somewhat out of the glare of light, which, since his illness, rather
painfully affected his eyes.
Suddenly the thought of Maisie Fforde as he had last seen her seemed to
rise before him as in a vision.
"I wonder if she is married," he said to himself. "Sure to be so, I
should think. Yet I should probably have heard of it."
And even as the words formed themselves in his mind, a still familiar
voice caught his ear.
"Thank you. Yes, this will do nicely. I will wait here till Mabel is
ready to go."
And a lady--a girl, he soon saw--came forward into the room towards the
corner where he was sitting. He rose at once; she approached him
quickly, then with a sudden, incoherent exclamation, made as if she
would have drawn back. But it was too late; she could not, if she
wished, have pretended she did not see him.
"Mr Norreys," she began; "I had no idea--"
"That I was in England," he said. "No, I have only just returned.
Pardon me for having startled you, Miss Fforde--Lady Margaret, I mean.
I on my side had no idea of meeting you here or--"
"Or you would not have come," she in her turn interrupted him with.
"Thank you; you are frank at all events," she added haughtily.
He turned away. There was perhaps some involuntary suggestion of
reproach in his manner, for hers changed.
"No," she said. "I am very wrong. Please stay for two minutes, and
listen to me. I have hoped and prayed that I might never meet you
again, but at the same time I made a vow--a real vow," she went on
girlishly, "that _if_ I did so I would swallow my pride, and--and ask
you to forgive me. There now--I have said it. That is all. Will you,
Mr Norreys?"
He glanced round; the whist party was all unconscious of the rest of the
world still--
"Will you not sit down for a moment, Lady Margaret?" he said, and as she
did so he too drew a chair nearer to hers. "It is disagreeable to be
overheard," he went on in a tone of half apology. "You ask me what I
cannot now do," he added.
The girl reared her head, and the softness of her manner hardened at
once.
"Then," she said, "we are quits. It does just as well. My conscience
is clear now."
"So is mine, as to _that_ particular of--of what you call forgiving
you," he said, and his voice was a degree less calm. "I cannot do so
now, for--I forgave you long, long ago."
"You have seen Mrs Englewood? She has told you at last that all was
explained to me--your sister's letter and all," she went on confusedly,
"that I saw how horrid, how low and mean and suspicious and everything I
had been?"
"I knew all you refer to before I left England," he said simply. "But I
asked Mrs Englewood to leave it as it was, unless she was absolutely
forced to tell you. I knew you must hate the sound of my name, and she
promised to drop the subject."
"And I have scarcely seen her for a long time," said Maisie. "I saw she
did avoid it, and I suppose she thought it no use talking about it."
"I did not need her explanation," Despard went on gently. "I had--if
you will have the word--I had forgiven you long before. Indeed, I think
I did so almost at once. It was all natural on your part. What had I
done, what was I that you should have thought any good of me? When you
remembered the way I behaved to you at first," and here his voice grew
very low. "I have never been able to--I shall never be able to forgive
myself--"
"Mr Norreys!" said Maisie in a very contrite tone. But Despard kept
silence.
"Are you going to stay at home now, or are you going away again?" she
asked presently, trying to speak in a matter-of-fact way.
"I hardly know. I am waiting to see what I can get to do. I don't much
mind what, but I shall never again be able to be idle," he said, smiling
a little for the first time. "It is my own fault entirely--the fault of
my own past folly--that I am not now well on in the profession I was
intended for. So I must not grumble if I have to take what work I can
get in any part of the world. I would rather stay in England for some
reasons."
"Why?" she asked.
"I cannot stand heat very well," he said. "My little sunstroke left
some weak points--my eyes are not strong."
She did not answer at once.
Then, "How crooked things are," she said at last suddenly; "you want
work, and I--oh, I am _so_ busy and worried. Papa impressed upon me
that I must look after things myself, and accept the responsibilities,
but--I don't think he quite saw how difficult it would be," and her eyes
filled with tears.
"But--" said Despard, puzzled by her manner, "he is surely able to help
you?"
She turned to him more fully--the tears came more quickly, but she did
not mind his seeing them.
"Didn't you know?" she said; "Papa is dead--more than a year ago now.
Just before I came of age. I am quite alone. That silly--I shouldn't
say that, he is kind and good--Conrad is Lord Southwold now. But I
don't want to marry him, though he is almost the only man who, I _know_,
cares for me for myself. How strange you did not know about my being
all alone! Didn't you notice this?" and she touched her black skirt.
"I have never seen you except in black," said Despard. "No--I had no
idea. I am so grieved."
"If--if you stay in England," she began again half timidly, "and you say
you have forgiven me,"--he made a little gesture of deprecation of the
word--"can't we be friends, Mr Norreys?"
Despard rose to his feet. The whist party had dispersed. The little
room was empty.
"No," he said, "I am afraid that could never be, Lady Margaret. The one
reason why I wish to leave England again is that I know now, I cannot--I
must not risk seeing you."
Maisie looked up, the tears were still glimmering about her eyes and
cheeks; was it their soft glistening that made her face look so bright
and almost radiant?
"Oh, do say it again--don't think me not nice, oh, _don't_!" she
entreated. "But why--oh, why, if you care for me, though I can scarcely
believe it, why let my horrible money come between us? _I_ shall never
care for anybody else--there now, I have said it!" And she tried to
hide her face, but he would not let her.
"Do you really mean it, dear?" he said. "If you do, I--I will swallow
_my_ pride, too; shall I?"
She looked up, half laughing now.
"Quits again, you see. Oh, dear, how dreadfully happy I am! And you
know, as you are so fond of work now, you will have _lots_ to do. All
manner of things for poor people that I want to manage, and don't know
how--and all our own--I won't say `my' any more--tenants to look after--
and--and--"
"`That girl in black' herself to take care of, and make as happy as all
my love and my strength, and my life's devotion can," said Despard.
"Maisie, my darling; God grant that you may never regret your generosity
and goodness."
"No, no," she murmured, "yours are far greater, far, far greater."
There was a moment's silence. Then suddenly Despard put his hand into
his pocket and held out something to Maisie.
"Look," he said, "do you remember? I should have returned it to you,
but I could not make up my mind to it. I have never parted with it
night or day, all these years."
It was the little silver vinaigrette.
This all happened several years ago, and, by what I can gather, there
are few happier people than Despard Norreys and Lady Margaret, his wife.