“Indeed, I will,” answered the young man earnestly, taking both her hands in his, and pressing them very tightly. “And—Nellie—I shall not see you again till Christmas. I am going back to Oxford to-morrow. But you will let me see you then in spite of that awful parent of yours. Good-bye—my darling?”
It slipped out. A start. A tell-tale, blushing face—then—a kiss. But the colour faded from the girl’s cheek, which grew white again.
“Hark! Someone is coming. Please go—Eustace—and—good-bye.”
She was really alarmed, and it would be cruel of him to stay a moment longer. But his heart was light within him. She had called him “Eustace,” and had spoken affectionately to him. A hasty, murmured word, and he was gone.
And as Eustace Ingelow regained the high road, it seemed that five years had been added to his life since he leaped that low paling into Cranston Park, barely an hour before. He had gone in there a light-hearted, thoughtless boy—he returned a man, with a new purpose to engross his life.
That evening the rector received a note. He could not repress a start as his eye fell upon the Dorrien crest and legend stamped on the flap of the envelope. Had the wanderer decided to return to them at last! A second glance, however, showed that the letter was not a postal missive, but had been delivered by hand. Breaking it open, this is what he read:
“General Dorrien present his compliments to the Rector of Wandsborough and Mr Eustace Ingelow, and begs to remind the latter gentleman that no portion of Cranston Park is, in any sense, public property, and also to draw his attention to more than one notice-board there placed, which affects the question of trespass.
“General Dorrien takes the further liberty of remarking that gentlemen, having occasion to communicate with young ladies living under the care of their parents, would, in his opinion, be acting more honourably by obtaining lawful sanction prior to such communication, rather than by meeting clandestinely in secluded corners of the said parents’ private grounds.
“Cranston Hall.
“Thursday.”
A flush of anger came over the rector’s face as he read this precious missive, which, though the sender had bare legal right on his side, was clearly intended as a studied insult. Then he dropped it, as if it were something loathsome, and quietly busied himself again with the work which he had in hand. But when the girls had gone to bed he called his son into his study.
“Eustace, turn in here and smoke your pipe. It’s warmer than in that belittered den of yours upstairs.”
“All right, dad. I’ll just run up and put on a ‘blazer.’”