"And what was the last thing?" Mrs. Orton Beg inquired, smiling indulgently.
"Oh, that was very simple," Lord Dawne rejoined. "Diavolo, dressed in velvet, was caught and taken up by a policeman for recklessly driving a hansom in Oxford Street, Angelica being inside the same disguised in something of her mother's."
"I wonder it was Angelica who went inside!" Mrs. Orton Beg exclaimed.
"Well, that was what her mother said," Lord Dawne replied; "and both her parents seem to think the matter was not nearly so bad as it might have been in consequence. Mr. Hamilton-Wells had to pay a fine for the furious driving, and use all his influence with the Press to keep the thing out of the papers."
"But where did the children get the hansom?" Mrs. Beale begged to be informed.
"I regret to say that they hailed it through the dining room window, and plied the driver with raw brandy until his venal nature gave in to their earnestly persuasive eloquence and the contents of their purses, and he consented to let Diavolo 'just try what it was like to sit up on that high box,' Angelica having previously got inside, and, of course, the moment the young scamp had the reins in his hands he drove off full tilt."
"Oh, dear, poor Lady Adeline!" Mrs. Beale exclaimed.
Lord Dawne smiled again, and changed the subject. "Did you feel the storm much here?" he asked. "My trees have suffered a great deal, I am sorry to say."
"Ah, that reminds me," Mrs. Beale began. "A very strange and solemn thing happened on the day of the storm; have you heard of it, Olive?"
"No," Mrs. Orton Beg answered with interest. "What was it?"
"Well, you know the dean's brother has a large family of daughters," Mrs. Beale replied, "and they had a very charming governess, Miss Winstanley, a lady by birth, and an accomplished person, and extremely spirituelle. Well, on the morning of the storm she was sitting at work with one of her pupils in the schoolroom, when another came in from the garden, and uttered an exclamation of surprise when she saw Miss Winstanley, 'How did you get in, and take your things off so quickly?' she said. 'I have not been out,' Miss Winstanley answered. 'Why, I saw you—I ran past you over by the duck pond!' 'Dear child, you must be mistaken. I haven't been out to-day,' the governess answered, smiling. Well, that child got out her work and sat down, but she had hardly done so when another came in, and also exclaimed: 'Oh, Miss Winstanley! How did you get here? I saw you standing looking out of the window at the bottom of the picture gallery as I ran past this minute.' 'I must have a double,' said Miss Winstanley lightly. 'But it was you,' the child insisted; 'I saw you quite well, flowers and all.' The governess was wearing some scarlet geranium. 'You know what they say if people are seen like that where they have never been in the body?' she said jokingly. 'They say it is a sign that that person is going to die.' In the afternoon," Mrs. Beale continued, lowering her voice and glancing round involuntarily—and in the momentary pause the rush of the gale without sounded obtrusively—"in the afternoon of that same day she went out alone for a walk, and did not return, and they became alarmed at last, and sent some men to search for her when the storm was at its height, and they found her lying across a stile. She had been killed by the branch of a tree falling on her."
"How do you explain that?" Mrs. Orton Beg said softly to Lord Dawne.
"I should not attempt to explain it," he answered, rising.
"Must you go?"
"Yes, I am sorry to say. Claudia and Ideala charged me with many messages for you."
"They are together as usual, and well, I trust?"
"Yes," he answered, "and most anxious to hear a better account of your foot."
"Ah, I hope to be able to walk soon," she said, holding out her hand to him.
"What a charming man he is," Mrs. Beale remarked when he had gone. "There is no hope of his marrying, I suppose," she added, trying not to look at her daughter.
"Oh, no!" Mrs. Orton Beg exclaimed in an almost horrified tone.
Lord Dawne's friends made no secret of his grand and chivalrous devotion to the distinguished woman known to them all as Ideala. Every one of them was aware, although he had never let fall a word on the subject, that he had remained single on her account—every one but Ideala herself. She never suspected it, or thought of love at all in connection with Lord Dawne—and, besides, she was married.
When her friends had gone that day Mrs. Orton Beg sat long in the gathering dusk, watching the newly lighted fire burn up, and thinking. She was thinking of Evadne chiefly, wondering why she had had no news of her, why her sister Elizabeth did not write, and tell her all about the wedding; and she was just on the verge of anxiety—in that state when various possibilities of trouble that might have occurred to account for delays begin to present themselves to the mind, when all at once, without hearing anything, she became conscious of a presence near her, and looking up she was startled to see Evadne herself.
"My dear child!" she gasped, "what has happened? Why are you here?"
"Nothing has happened, auntie; don't be alarmed," Evadne answered. "I am here because I have been a fool."
She spoke quietly but with concentrated bitterness, then sat down and began to take off her gloves with that exaggerated show of composure which is a sign in some people of suppressed emotion.
Her face was pale, but her eyes were bright, and the pupils were dilated.
"I have come to claim your hospitality, auntie," she pursued, "to ask you for shelter from the world for a few days, because I have been a fool. May I stay?"
"Surely, dear child," Mrs. Orton Beg replied, and then she waited, mastering the nervous tremor into which the shock of Evadne's sudden appearance had thrown her with admirable self-control. And here again the family likeness between aunt and niece was curiously apparent. Both masked their agitation because both by temperament were shy, and ashamed to show strong feeling.
Evadne looked into the fire for a little, trying to collect herself. "I knew what was right," she began at last in a low voice, "I knew we should take nothing for granted, we should never be content merely to feel and suppose and hope for the best in matters about which we should know exactly. And yet I took no trouble to ascertain. I fell in love, and liked the sensation, and gave myself up to it unreservedly. Certainly, I was a fool—there is no other word for it."
"But are you married, Evadne?" Mrs. Orton Beg asked in a voice rendered unnatural by the rapid beating of her heart.
"Let me tell you, auntie, all about it," Evadne answered hoarsely. She drew her chair a little closer to the fire, and spread her hands out to the blaze. There was no other light in the room by this time. The wind without howled dismally still, but at intervals, as if with an effort. During one of its noisiest bursts the cathedral clock began to strike, and hushed it, as it were, suddenly. It seemed to be listening, to be waiting, and Evadne waited and listened too, raising her head. There was a perceptible, momentary pause, then came the chime, full, round, mournful, melodious, yet glad too, in the strength of its solemn assurance, filling the desolate regions of sorrow and silence with something of hope whereon the weary mind might repose:
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