"No doubt of it," replied the gentleman, at which she gave him a grateful glance, thinking she had won an unexpected ally; "but," he continued, "I hoped you would feel at home here."
Helene assured him that it was impossible for her to enjoy her visit more than she was doing. As she made this perfectly sincere statement her melancholy eyes by chance encountered the deep blue ones of her unacknowledged lover. In their depths lurked an expression of absolute relief. Could he then be glad to hear of their projected departure? She hoped so. It would be very much better for both. "Has it never occurred to you," she asked of Sir Peregrine, "that the pleasantest things in this world are very seldom the best for us?"
"I am sorry to hear you say that," he rejoined pleasantly, "as I was about to ask you to go out driving with me to-morrow morning. There is a view near the Falls that I believe you have never yet seen, and the gratification of showing it to you would be to me one of the pleasantest things in the world."
The young lady very willingly admitted that this was an exception to the rule she had just laid down. Lady Sarah, who thus far had approved her husband's tactics, now gave him a slightly questioning glance, but he returned her such a look of self-confident good cheer, that she knew at once he must be involved in a deep-laid plot of his own. As a rule she had small respect for masculine plots, and before another day had elapsed her sentiment on the subject was abundantly shared by at least two of her guests. Mademoiselle DeBerczy had always entertained a genuine admiration and liking for the Lieutenant-Governor. His chivalrous courtesy, picturesque appearance, and the exquisite refinement of his tone and manner pleased her fastidious taste. So it was with almost a light heart that she made her preparations next morning for the drive. But when seated in the carriage, and waiting with a bright face the appearing of her delinquent attendant, it was not pleasant to be told by the gentleman himself that important dispatches had just arrived by the morning's mail, which demanded his personal and immediate attention. "Besides that fact," said His Excellency, "I had forgotten an appointment I have with the Hon. Mr. Hamilton Merritt to talk over his great project of the Welland Canal between the two Lakes, and I cannot disappoint him." He couldn't think of asking her to wait until the sun was hot, and the pleasure of the drive spoiled, added the Lieutenant-Governor. But here was Edward Macleod, who would no doubt be glad to take his place. At this announcement Helene longed to fly to her room, but she could think of no valid excuse. The young man, sitting with the last Gazette in hand in a rustic chair on the veranda, listened to the summons with silent horror. He actually turned pale, but like Helene, he could think of no possible excuse for evading the turn affairs had taken. He rose mechanically, gave inarticulate utterance to the pleasure he did not feel, and took his seat beside the unhappy girl, who shrank visibly into her corner.
"Admirable!" exclaimed Lady Sarah, softly stepping out to witness the unusual phenomenon of Edward and Helene driving away together. "I never supposed a man could have so much sagacity and foresight. Here have I been cudgelling my brains to keep those two from playing hide and seek—no, hide and avoid—ever since they came, and now you accomplish it in the easiest and most natural way in the world. See what it is to have a clever husband! How did you happen to think of those important dispatches?"
Emphasis would indicate too coarsely the delicate stress laid upon the last two words. The gentleman looked extremely puzzled.
"Happen to think? I am obliged to think of them."
"Really? What a lucky accident! So you are not the sly designing schemer I supposed. Ah, well, you are the soul of honour, and that is infinitely better."
Certainly to her mind in the present case that was what appearances would seem to indicate; but the poor wretches who were tending slowly toward the brink of some indefinable horror, more awful to their imaginations than the great cataract itself, thought not so much upon the means by which they were brought into their present painful position, as upon the impossibility of escape from it. To the eye of a casual wayfarer these handsome young people, driving abroad through the dewy freshness of the morning, with the long lovely day before them, could not be considered objects of pity.
For a while they took refuge in commonplaces, relieved by lapses of eloquent silence; then as the winding road conducted them by easy gradations into greener depths of leafy solitude they looked involuntarily into each other's eyes, and realized that, beneath all the bitterness and pride and cruel estrangement, their love was the truest, most unalterable, part of their life.