She was bearing up wonderfully. He would waylay Bessie perhaps once a day, and get her to talk to him of her; and never was Bessie reluctant to talk of her beloved mistress, and Bessie told him how remarkably Olivia had escaped the dreaded return of her illness.
“If anything had happened, my lord,” Bessie would say, and then Lord Clydesfold would silence her. He would not permit any one to speak of the past.
While the world was still talking and marveling over the romantic “Hawkwood Murder,” and wondering why, now that he was free from the woman who had held him in thrall and free from the shadow of death, Lord Clydesfold did not return to the society which his rank and wealth would have so well adorned, the blow which he had been expecting fell upon the squire.
A distant cousin of Bartley Bradstone’s rose up from the mists of obscurity and claimed what remained of his property; and, on examining his affairs, the mortgages on the Grange estate and the squire’s bonds were discovered.
Then was the cousin jubilant; and, losing no time, swooped down like a bird of prey.
The squire was prepared. It is a question whether, in the joy of having his darling restored to him, he felt any very great sorrow.
“We must go, dear,” he said to Olivia, from whom he now concealed nothing, and would never again conceal anything. “You will be brave, dear? It is a cruel business for you; but——”
Olivia put her arms round his neck, and drew his troubled, careworn face to hers.
“Dear, if you knew how wickedly glad I feel!” she said. “Let them take everything so that they leave you and me—and auntie—in peace. Shall we take a cottage in Wales, or go abroad; one can live so cheaply abroad, can’t one?”
“I—I don’t quite know yet,” said the squire, doubtfully. “I must ask Clydesfold.”