“Rachel, is it possible,” she said, “that you forbid your mother to the house?”
“It is John Temple’s house now, not mine, and he does not wish to be worried; so please stay away,” replied Mrs. Temple, coolly; and Mrs. Layton departed, feeling that “a judgment” was sure to descend on her daughter’s head.
Mrs. Temple told John Temple of this quarrel, and laughed a little scornfully at the recollection of it.
“My mother is a woman,” she said, “on whom all delicacy of feeling is wasted, for she has none;” and John Temple certainly agreed with her.
But on the third day after his arrival at Woodlea something occurred which worried and disturbed him more than twenty visits from Mrs. Layton. It was a fine spring day and Mrs. Temple had gone out for a drive, but John Temple had refused to accompany her. However, about four o’clock, tempted by the sunshine, he lit a cigar and strolled out into the park.
He walked on moodily enough with bent head, when his attention was attracted by the sound of carriage wheels approaching down the avenue. He supposed it would be Mrs. Temple returning from her drive, and so he walked on. But when the carriage drew nearer and he was about to meet it, he saw it was not one of the Hall carriages, but evidently a hired one. He therefore turned hastily into a side path, for he was in no mood to encounter strangers. Then he heard the carriage stop, and a few moments later, when he again looked around, he perceived a lady on the side path, who was evidently following him.
He stopped, and for an instant the thought, the wild hope, crossed his brain, could it be May? But no; the lady who was approaching him, though closely veiled, was taller than the slender girlish form of his lost love. She advanced quickly, and in another minute they met; and John Temple started back as they did so.
For it was the woman to whom he had not spoken for long years; the woman he had wedded in his early youth, and whose existence had been a curse and a stumbling-block in his way!
“You!” he said, sternly. “Why are you here?”
“From a natural feeling of curiosity,” answered the actress, who bore the professional name of Kathleen Weir. “I wished to see you in your new home!” And she gave a little laugh.