Earle wondered much what had happened to change his lady-love so completely. Looking back, he found that she had never been quite the same since the day she went to the Castle. At first he thought it merely a girlish feeling of discontent; that it would pass away in time as the remembrance of all the luxury and splendor she had seen faded from her. Every morning when he arose he thought, "It will come all right to-day; she will put her sweet arms around my neck, and bend her beautiful face to mine, and tell me she is sorry—oh! so sorry, that she has been cold to me."
But the days passed on, and that golden dream was never verified; the coldness seemed to grow greater, and the shadow deeper.
Once, when she was walking out with Earle, she saw Lord Vivianne. He was walking down the high-road, and she knew well that he had been at the farm to look for her. Her heart beat when she saw him as it had never done for the man she had promised to marry. Earle was an ordinary man; this was a lord, and he had been purposely to look for her. He looked so handsome, so distinguished; she turned almost involuntarily from him to Earle, and the contrast was not in the poet's favor. Lord Vivianne was beautifully dressed in the most faultless and exquisite taste. Earle had not the advantage of a London tailor.
As they drew nearer, Earle, quite unconscious that Doris had ever seen the stranger before, made some remark about him.
"He has a handsome face," said Earle, "but it is not a face I like; it is not good."
"Good!" repeated Doris; "that is like you and Mattie. Earle, you think every one must be good."
"So they must," replied Earle.
Then they were both silent, for the stranger was just passing by. He looked at Doris, but he did not bow or speak to her; only from his eyes to hers there passed a strange gleam of intelligence. He did not think it wise to make any sign of recognition before the young escort who looked at him with such keen, questioning eyes.
"He would only begin to ask half a hundred questions about me, which she would find it difficult to answer," he thought; so he passed on in silence, and for a few minutes Doris was beside herself with vexation.
"It is all because this tiresome Earle is with me," she thought. "If I had been alone he would have stopped and have talked to me. How can I tell what he would have said? Perhaps he would have asked me to marry him—perhaps he is going away, and he wanted to bid me good-bye. Oh, if I could but see him alone!"