“So I told him,” she said. “By the bye, do you know where he is staying?”
“At Onetree farm,” the young man answered.
Wilhelmina frowned.
“Will you execute a commission for me to-morrow?” she asked.
“With pleasure!” he answered eagerly.
“You will go to the woman at Onetree farm, I forget her name, and say that I desire to take her rooms myself from to-morrow, or as soon as possible. I will pay her for them, but I do not wish that young man to be taken in by any of my tenants. You will perhaps make that known.”
“I will do so,” he declared. “I hope he will have the good sense to leave the neighbourhood.”
“I trust so,” Wilhelmina replied.
She turned away to speak once more to the man on her other side, and did not address Stephen Hurd again. He watched her covertly, with tingling pulses, as she devoted herself to her neighbour—the Lord-Lieutenant of the county. He considered himself a judge of the sex, but he had had few opportunities even of admiring such women as the mistress of Thorpe. He watched the curve of her white neck with its delicate, satin-like skin, the play of her features, the poise of her somewhat small, oval head. He admired the slightly wearied air with which she performed her duties and accepted the compliments of her neighbour. “A woman of mysteries” some one had once called her, and he realized that it was the mouth and the dark, tired eyes which puzzled those who attempted to classify her. What a triumph—to bring her down to the world of ordinary women, to drive the weariness away, to feel the soft touch, perhaps, of those wonderful arms! He was a young man of many conquests, and with a sufficiently good idea of himself. The thought was like wine in his blood. If only it were possible!