While he accepted a vacant place on her right hand, and chatted about his travels, his ear was pitched to hear what Joan was talking so brightly about to Lady Mound and her daughters at the other end of the table. He lost the thread of Lady Thorne's remarks, until she startled him agreeably by asking him whether they would meet him that afternoon at the concert at Dulwich House.
"Are you-is Miss Thorne-going?" he stammered. "I-of course I only arrived last night, but Lady Dulwich is such an old friend, I know I should be quite the bien-venu!"
"Joan, you are coming with me to Lady Dulwich's this afternoon, of course?" asked her aunt, when there was a lull in the conversation. "No? Why not?"
"I am riding to Crouch Hill to see poor Nana," she said, and the determined tones of her resonant young voice seemed to strike upon Vansittart's hot, perturbedly beating heart. "I know it is not a month yet since I went last-my uncle is an autocrat, as I daresay you know, Lady Mound! He only allows me to see my poor old nurse once a month! But I had a letter from her, she is worse than usual. I meant to have told you, auntie, but you were busy, and I thought it did not matter."
"It matters very much, unless you drive, for I cannot accompany you this afternoon," said her uncle, raising his voice so that his wife could hear. "Joan can drive with her maid, my dear." He was well aware that Joan detested driving accompanied by her maid. "You can postpone it till to-morrow? I could not go with you then, Joan, I have to attend a meeting. Perhaps Vansittart will spare time to escort you? You are not deep in engagements yet I expect, my boy, are you?"
"I should be only too pleased, if Miss Thorne will accept my services, as she has done on occasion in the hunting-field," he said, with an effort not to betray his violent delight at such an opportunity to plead his cause.
"London is not the country, Lord Vansittart, thanks," said Joan, calmly; although she had suddenly paled to lividity with dread, with the indescribable fear she felt of self betrayal to this man who loved her. "I shall be perfectly safe, alone. One only meets a few wagons and carts along the highroads."
There was a slightly displeased expostulation from her uncle, a deprecatory word or two in favour of Vansittart as her squire on the part of Lady Thorne; and Joan, desperate, capitulated, feeling unequal to being focussed by all the pairs of eyes around the table. She went upstairs to change her habit and hat for one more suited to the muddy suburban roads, and presently found herself trotting northwards on her spirited grey mare Nora, Vansittart at her side.
She had chosen Nora, she coldly remarked-she meant to be an icicle to Vansittart, it was her only chance-because she "wanted a good gallop," and Nora had not been out that day. And as soon as the young mare had frisked and capered through the suburbs in a manner which made Vansittart somewhat anxious, and effectually prevented conversation, she and her mistress bounded off in a canter, and literally tore along the soft roads, startling the few pedestrians and drivers of tradesmen's carts, Lord Vansittart's horse galloping after, and the groom scampering in the rear to keep in sight of the pair. Joan only slackened speed for more than a few moments when she saw the row of cottages where old Mrs. Todd lived, at the foot of the wide sloping road that wound downhill.
"There is the cottage," she said, pointing with her whip. "The poor old soul who lives in it loves me best in the world, and I think I return it with interest! She was my nurse when I was a child, helped my mother nurse my father through his long illness, then nursed her to her death, and only left me because she felt too helpless to be of any use!"
"And now you make her life happy by seeing her now and then," he said, gazing passionately at the pure, white, girlish profile under the felt hat.
"She can hardly be happy-doubled up with rheumatism, lonely, poor-it is ridiculous to suggest such a thing!" she said, disgustedly-then, touching Nora's flank lightly with her heel, she rode off; he followed, springing down to assist her to alight. But she frowned at him.
"You had better hold her, please," she suggested. "Where is that groom of mine? Oh, there he is! I shall be quite half an hour. You might inspect the neighbourhood."
"Thanks for the suggestion, perhaps I shall!" he good humouredly returned, with a scrutinizing glance at a stern old face framed by the cottage window panes, which disappeared as he looked; and as Joan slipped nonchalantly off her panting steed and went within, congratulating herself upon having furnished herself with a good chance of losing or evading him and returning alone, he decided to remain well out of sight of the cottage, but only where he could keep his eye on the groom and the horses.
"Well, Nana, here I am, you see," said Joan, entering and embracing the worn old crone who stood leaning on her stick in the middle of the kitchen and parlour combined. It was a dark, low room, filled with some old-fashioned furniture-remnants of Joan's vicarage home. A big old arm-chair stood by the fireplace, where there was a bright little fire, although in a few weeks it would be midsummer. "Sit down at once!" She led her gently back to her chair. "Poor old dear! You have been bad this time, haven't you? You mustn't spare the doctor-send his bill to me! You got that chicken panada and jelly? That's right! I've brought some money for little things-"
"Never mind money, dearie! but tell me who's the gentleman?" said the old woman, whose large, shining eyes shone living in her emaciated, deathly face-shading her eyes with her skinny, clawlike hand, and gazing anxiously at Joan, who had drawn a low folding chair near and was seated opposite the fire. "I like his face, that I do! I saw him as you got down from your horse."
"It is Lord Vansittart," said Joan, frowning slightly.
The old woman bent forward, and scrutinized her nursling's expressive features.
"You like him?" she suddenly asked. "Oh, if you do, may the Lord be praised!"
Joan gave a bitter, hopeless laugh.
"What good would it do me if I did?" she mournfully said.
"What good?" The aged crone leant forward and clasped Joan's gauntleted wrists with her dark, clawlike hands. "Oh, my blessed darlint! If you could only be married-to a real gentleman like him-and would forget all about that business, and that wretched chap, I should die happy, that I should! You have forgot him, haven't you, dearie?"
Mrs. Todd gazed anxiously at Joan's gloomy, miserable, yet most beautiful eyes. There was a far away look-a look of mingled dread and aversion, as if beyond all, she could see some loathsome, terrible object.
"Forget the curse of my life?" she bitterly exclaimed. "For, while I do not know where he is, if he is alive or dead, my life is accursed… How dare I-love-care for-any good man, saddle any one's life with my miserable folly, confess to any honest person my-my-association with him? Why, I blush and groan and grovel and tear my hair when I think of it, and if my uncle knew- Heavens! he might curse me and turn me out of doors and leave me to starve! He does not love me as if I were his own child, I know that-how can he when he was at daggers drawn with my father all those years? And auntie, kind though she is, she is only his wife-she is good to me because he wishes her to be! They are only pleased with me because I please in society-people like me, like my looks-if they knew-if they knew-oh! my God!"
She clasped her hands over her face, and writhed. The old woman's features worked, but her brilliant, unearthly eyes were riveted firmly on her darling.
"You were once a great fool, dearie! But don't 'ee be a fool now, never no more," she said, sonorously, solemnly. "There was summat you once used to say, poetry, when you was home from school-it did go right down into my heart like a bullet dropped into a well-summat like 'a dead past oughter bury its dead.' Can your