Suddenly he heard Miss Harden saying, with penitent emphasis, "I am stupid! I have left the scissors and the wire on the table at home; we can't get on without them; it is really too bad of me."
"I will go for them," said Marcella promptly. "Here is the hand-cart just arrived and some people come to help; you can't be spared. I will be back directly."
And, gathering up her black skirt in a slim white hand, she sped down the church, and was out of the south door before the Hardens had time to protest, or Aldous Raeburn understood what she was doing.
A vexed word from Miss Harden enlightened him, and he went after the fugitive, overtaking her just where his gun and dog lay, outside the churchyard.
"Let me go, Miss Boyce," he said, as he caught her up. "My dog and I will run there and back."
But Marcella hardly looked at him, or paused.
"Oh no!" she said quickly, "I should like the walk."
He hesitated; then, with a flush which altered his usually quiet, self-contained expression, he moved on beside her.
"Allow me to go with you then. You are sure to find fresh loads to bring back. If it's like our harvest festival, the things keep dropping in all day."
Marcella's eyes were still on the ground.
"I thought you were on your way to shoot, Mr. Raeburn?"
"So I was, but there is no hurry; if I can be useful. Both the birds and the keeper can wait."
"Where are you going?"
"To some outlying fields of ours on the Windmill Hill. There is a tenant there who wants to see me. He is a prosy person with a host of grievances. I took my gun as a possible means of escape from him."
"Windmill Hill? I know the name. Oh! I remember: it was there—my father has just been telling me—that your father and he shot the pair of kestrels, when they were boys together."
Her tone was quite light, but somehow it had an accent, an emphasis, which made Aldous Raeburn supremely uncomfortable. In his disquiet, he thought of various things to say; but he was not ready, nor naturally effusive; the turn of them did not please him; and he remained silent.
Meantime Marcella's heart was beating fast. She was meditating a coup.
"Mr. Raeburn!"
"Yes!"
"Will you think me a very extraordinary person if I ask you a question? Your father and mine were great friends, weren't they, as boys?—your family and mine were friends, altogether?"
"I believe so—I have always heard so," said her companion, flushing still redder.
"You knew Uncle Robert—Lord Maxwell did?"
"Yes—as much as anybody knew him—but—"
"Oh, I know: he shut himself up and hated his neighbours. Still you knew him, and papa and your father were boys together. Well then, if you won't mind telling me—I know it's bold to ask, but I have reasons—why does Lord Maxwell write to papa in the third person, and why has your aunt, Miss Raeburn, never found time in all these weeks to call on mamma?"
She turned and faced him, her splendid eyes one challenge. The glow and fire of the whole gesture—the daring of it, and yet the suggestion of womanish weakness in the hand which trembled against her dress and in the twitching lip—if it had been fine acting, it could not have been more complete. And, in a sense, acting there was in it. Marcella's emotions were real, but her mind seldom deserted her. One half of her was impulsive and passionate; the other half looked on and put in finishing touches.
Acting or no, the surprise of her outburst swept the man beside her off his feet. He found himself floundering in a sea of excuses—not for his relations, but for himself. He ought never to have intruded; it was odious, unpardonable; he had no business whatever to put himself in her way! Would she please understand that it was an accident? It should not happen again. He quite understood that she could not regard him with friendliness. And so on. He had never so lost his self-possession.
Meanwhile Marcella's brows contracted. She took his excuses as a fresh offence.
"You mean, I suppose, that I have no right to ask such questions!" she cried; "that I am not behaving like a lady—as one of your relations would? Well, I dare say! I was not brought up like that. I was not brought up at all; I have had to make myself. So you must avoid me if you like. Of course you will. But I resolved there—in the church—that I would make just one effort, before everything crystallises, to break through. If we must live on here hating our neighbours and being cut by them, I thought I would just ask you why, first. There is no one else to ask. Hardly anybody has called, except the Hardens, and a few new people that don't matter. And I have nothing to be ashamed of," said the girl passionately, "nor has mamma. Papa, I suppose, did some bad things long ago. I have never known—I don't know now—what they were. But I should like to understand. Is everybody going to cut us because of that?"
With a great effort Aldous Raeburn pulled himself together, certain fine instincts both of race and conduct coming to his help. He met her excited look by one which had both dignity and friendliness.
"I will tell you what I can, Miss Boyce. If you ask me, it is right I should. You must forgive me if I say anything that hurts you. I will try not—I will try not!" he repeated earnestly. "In the first place, I know hardly anything in detail. I do not remember that I have ever wished to know. But I gather that some years ago—when I was still a lad—something in Mr. Boyce's life—some financial matters, I believe—during the time that he was member of Parliament, made a scandal, and especially among his family and old friends. It was the effect upon his old father, I think, who, as you know, died soon afterwards—"
Marcella started.
"I didn't know," she said quickly.
Aldous Raeburn's distress grew.
"I really oughtn't to speak of these things," he said, "for I don't know them accurately. But I want to answer what you said—I do indeed. It was that, I think, chiefly. Everybody here respected and loved your grandfather—my grandfather did—and there was great feeling for him—"
"I see! I see!" said Marcella, her chest heaving; "and against papa."
She walked on quickly, hardly seeing where she was going, her eyes dim with tears. There was a wretched pause. Then Aldous Raeburn broke out—
"But after all it is very long ago. And there may have been some harsh judgment. My grandfather may have been misinformed as to some of the facts. And I—"
He hesitated, struck with the awkwardness of what he was going to say.
But Marcella understood him.
"And you will try and make him alter his mind?" she said, not ungratefully, but still with a touch of sarcasm in her tone. "No, Mr. Raeburn, I don't think that will succeed."
They walked on in silence for a little while. At last he said, turning upon her a face in which she could not but see the true feeling of a just and kindly man—
"I meant that if my grandfather could be led to express himself in a way which Mr. Boyce could accept, even if there were no great friendship as there used to be, there might be something better than this—this, which—which—is so painful. And any way, Miss Boyce, whatever