CHAPTER XII.
ELINOR ROCHEFORD.
It was a morning in August, when a gray mist hung over the earth, a mist that resulted from the intense heat, and through which trees, flowers, and fountains loomed faintly like shadows. The sun showed his bright face at intervals, but, though he withheld his gracious presence, the heat and warmth were great; the air was laden with perfume, and the birds were all singing as though they knew that the sun would soon reappear.
One glance at her pupil's face showed Miss Hastings there was not much to be done in the way of study. Pauline wanted to watch the mist rise from the hills and trees. She wanted to see the sunbeams grow bright and golden.
"Let us read under the lime trees, Miss Hastings," she said, and Captain Langton smiled approval. For the time was come when he followed her like her shadow; when he could not exist out of her presence; when his passionate love mastered him, and brought him, a very slave, to her feet; when the hope of winning her was dearer to him than life itself; when he would have sacrificed even Darrell Court for the hope of calling her his wife.
If she knew of his passion, she made no sign; she never relaxed from her haughty, careless indifference; she never tried in the least to make herself agreeable to him.
Sir Oswald watched her with keen eyes, and Miss Hastings trembled lest misfortune should come upon the girl she was learning to love so dearly. She saw and understood that the baronet was slowly but surely making up his mind; if Pauline married the captain, he would make her his heiress; if not, she would never inherit Darrell Court.
On this August morning they formed a pretty group under the shadowy, graceful limes. Miss Hastings held in her hands some of the fine fancy work which delights ladies; the captain reclined on a tiger-skin rug on the grass, looking very handsome, for, whatever might be his faults of mind, he was one of the handsomest men in England. Pauline, as usual, was beautiful, graceful, and piquant, wearing a plain morning dress of some gray material—a dress which on any one else would have looked plain, but which she had made picturesque and artistic by a dash of scarlet—and a pomegranate blossom in her hair. Her lovely face looked more than usually noble under the influence of the words she was reading.