CHAPTER XIX.
Drake rode over to the Grange for breakfast, according to his promise. He was glad of the ride, glad of an hour or two in which he could think over the dramatic events of the preceding night, and, so to speak, clear his brain of the unpleasant glamour which Lady Luce's words and behavior had produced.
Not for a moment did he swerve from his allegiance to Nell; never for a moment did the splendor of Luce's beauty, the trick of her soft voice, her passionate caress, eclipse the starlike purity of Nell's nature and personality. If it were possible, he loved Nell better and more devotedly, longed for her more ardently, since his meeting with Luce, than he had done before.
All the way to the Grange he rehearsed what he would say to Nell when he rode back to The Cottage. He would tell her everything; would beg her to forgive him for his deception, his concealment of his full name and title, and—yes, he would admit that he had once loved, or thought that he had loved, Lady Luce; but that now——Well, there was only one woman in the world for him, and that was Nell.
He found Sir William standing on the lawn, dressed in riding cords of the good old kind, loose in fit and yellow in color, and surrounded by dogs of divers shapes and various breeds. He was as ruddy-cheeked and bright-eyed as if he had been to bed last night at ten o'clock, and he scanned the well-set-up Drake as he rode up, with a nod of approval.
"Up to time, Mr. Vernon—got your name right at last, eh? None the worse for the hop last night, I suppose? Don't look any, anyway. That's a good nag you're riding. Bred him yourself, eh? Gad! It's the best way, if it's the dearest."
He called for a groom to take the horse, and bade Drake come in to breakfast.
"You'll find nobody down, and we shall have it all to ourselves. That's the worst of women: keep 'em up half an hour later than usual, or upset their nerves with a bit of a row or anything of that kind, and, by George! they've got to lie abed the next morning! Now, help yourself to anything you see—have anything else cooked if you don't fancy what's here. I always toy with half a pound of steak, just to lay a foundation; been my breakfast, man and boy, for longer than I can remember."
Drake ate his breakfast and listened to the genial old man—not very attentively, it is to be feared, for he was thinking of Nell most of the time—and when the baronet had demolished his steak, they went to the farm, followed by the motley collection of dogs which had waited outside with more or less patience for the reappearance of their master, and welcomed him with a series of yappings and barkings which might have been heard a mile off.
The farm was a good one, and Drake gradually got interested in the really splendid cattle which Sir William exhibited with the enthusiasm of a breeder. The morning slipped away, but though Drake glanced at his watch significantly now and again, Sir William would not let him go; and at last he said: