P. S.—I owe my uncle something, for he has behaved with unusual kindness, and this journey to Ireland is the only way in which he will let me pay him. I will tell you all about it when I come back.
He sighed over the unsatisfactory epistle and closed it; then reopened the letter and caught up his pen to tell her of the loss of the ring and ask her to look for it; but he hesitated, and put the letter back in the envelope with the sentence unwritten. Then he put on his coat and walked to the meadows. The night was dark, and he had to light a match to enable him to find the stone beneath the trees, but he found it and concealed his letter, and then, after standing for a few moments and looking round him dreamily, casting up the vision of Doris, he turned and made his way back to the Towers.
The marquis had gone to his room, as was customary with him; his valet exchanged his master’s dress coat for a velvet dressing-gown, and the old man lay back in the chair looking at the fire with half-closed eyes.
The room was magnificently furnished, but in rather a subdued tone, which was rendered almost sombre by the heavy curtains that screened the window and a greater portion of the walls.
Against the deep purple of the hangings the clear, sharp-cut face with its distinct pallor looked almost like that of a dead man’s, and only the steel-like glitter of the eyes spoke of the vitality which lingered in the body, and burned in the spirit of the most honorable, the Marquis of Stoyle.
Presently there came a soft tap at the door, and in response to the marquis’ “come in,” Spenser Churchill entered.
If anything his smooth, innocent face looked more benevolent and charitable than usual, and the smile he bent upon the hard, cold face upturned to him was like that of a man whose sole delight is in doing good to his fellowmen.
“Well?” he said—or rather purred.
The marquis waved his hand to a chair, and Spenser Churchill dropped softly into it, and leaned back, his eyes on the ceiling, his fat hands clasped on his knee.
“You were right, you spoke nothing but the truth; the fool is in earnest.”