Bertie looked at her averted face with a half-troubled questioning, then his brow cleared.
“I tell you what it is, Olivia,” he said, as if he had found the solution, “the squire is too good-natured by half, that’s what it is!”
“I dare say!” she said, quietly. “Mind, we expect you to-morrow!” and covering him with one of her rare smiles as with a flash of sunlight, she drew her hand from his clasp and ran up the steps.
Bertie watched her till she had disappeared through the French window; watched her with an expression on his handsome, girlish face that made it very sweet and tender with its reverent admiration; then, with a little sigh of wistful longing, turned and walked quickly across the lawn.
He passed out into the lane that led to The Dell, and stopping at the rustic gate, pushed it open.
As he did so, a man dressed something between a butler and a gamekeeper, came toward him.
“Can I see——” commenced Bertie; then he stopped, for the “mysterious stranger” himself appeared in the doorway and walked down the path.
“Hallo! why, my dear——”
“Mr. Faradeane,” interrupted the owner of The Dell. “Come in, Lord Granville,” and he opened the door.
Bertie, coloring with a look of mystification and bewilderment, passed in and followed his host into the sitting-room of the cottage. The latter shut the door, and placing his hands—they were long and white as a woman’s, but as strong as a blacksmith’s—on Bertie’s shoulders, gently forced him into a chair.