As Chesney makes no reply to this sally, she glances at him, and, following the direction of his eyes, sees Cecilia, who has come out for a moment or two to breathe the sweet spring air, walking to and fro among the garden paths. It is a very pale and changed Cecilia upon whom they look.
"Why," exclaims Chesney, in a tone of rapt surprise, "surely that is Miss Duncan!"
"No,"—amazed,—"it is Mrs. Arlington, Sir Guy's tenant."
"True,"—slowly,—"I believe she did marry that fellow afterward. But I never knew her except as Miss Duncan."
"You knew her?"
"Very slightly,"—still with his eyes fixed upon Cecilia, as she paces mournfully up and down in the garden below them, with bent head and slow, languid movements. "Once I spoke to her, but I knew her well by sight; she was, she is, one of the loveliest women I ever saw. But how changed she is! how altered, how white her face appears! or can it be the distance makes me think so? I remember her such a merry girl—almost a child—when she married Arlington."
"Yes? She does not look merry now," says Lilian, the warm tears rising in her eyes: "poor darling, no wonder she looks depressed!"
"Why?"
"Oh," says Lilian, hesitating, "something about her husband, you know."
"You don't mean to say she is wearing sackcloth and the willow, and all that sort of thing, for Arlington all this time?" in a tone of astonishment largely flavored with contempt. "I knew him uncommonly well before he married, and I should think his death would have been a cause for rejoicing to his wife, above all others."