“Hush!” she said, “you must not abuse yourself. It has been all my fault from first to last; it is only like you to take the blame, but you know very well it all lies at my door. But, indeed, indeed I have been punished, and justly punished! I ought to have trusted you, Reginald; if I had followed my first impulse I would have spared myself many a bitter tear. I seem to have been under some malign influence, and to have had an absolute vocation for making you and myself miserable, that awful winter that seems so many years ago. Since then, Time has crawled by and brought no remedies for me—a blank empty future, and nothing to look back on but hateful haunting recollections; only for Maurice I must have gone melancholy mad. You will never leave me again, will you?
“You won’t go to Looton now?” she added suddenly.
“Yes; in fact I must. I’ll run down there for a few days and see how everything is getting on, look into the accounts, ride over the home farm, etc., and tell them to be ready for us at Christmas.”
“At Christmas?” she echoed in amazement.
“Yes. I shall then come back here and take you off abroad for the next three months. You were talking of Nice the other day: will you accept me as a companion instead of your aunt? How would you like to spend the autumn in Italy?”
“And Maurice?”
“Oh, Maurice will be made over to Helen; she will take excellent care of him. He has had a very good time the last two years; it’s my turn now. I must have you all to myself, no rivals, small or large, which is one reason why I don’t want to settle down at home just at present. We should have nothing but one scene of visiting, feasting, and mutual entertainments. Whereas, roaming about abroad, we can scorn all social claims, spend our time as we please, and, if the worst comes to the worst, pretend we are bride and bridegroom. If you are a good girl and get strong and well by Christmas I shall bring you home again; if not, I shall take you on to Egypt.”
“Egypt!” she echoed. “Why Egypt? And why do you sigh, Regy, and look at me so wistfully?” she asked, raising her gray eyes to his fond dark ones, that seemed to brim over with a look of anguish she could not understand.
“I did not sigh,” he replied mendaciously. “And why not go to Egypt? You know you have always had a craving to out-travel Helen and to see the old Nile. Come, it is getting late, I cannot let you stay out any longer; the dew is falling, you must go in.”
“Ah! I see you have had enough of me already,” she replied with a pretty little shrug. “Tell me, Regy, who have you got in this locket?—you never used to wear one.”