“Nothing. I only thought that perhaps some one might, in some way or other—let us say by an anonymous letter——”
She was off to another part of the room before he could detain her, though he even clutched at her dress; her mocking laughter was quite distinct through the music.
“That woman’s the very devil!” was Sir Vincent’s muttered exclamation....
From the ball-room to the gardens and sunny glades of Knightswell. Ada went thither the day after she received Lacour’s letter, purposing a week of solitude. Mrs. Clarendon was tasting the sweets of the season in her wonted way, and the girl had Knightswell to herself. She enjoyed it. Up but little later than the sun, she went to see the rabbits at their dewy breakfast in the park, and to hear the thrushes pipe their mornings rapture. And she, too, sang out loud in the joy of her youth, and health, and freedom, in the delight of things achieved, and in glorious anticipation of effort that lay before her. Her spirits were as the weather, sunny, fresh, unclouded. Dark moods had fled from the strong and gracious presence which thrived in her heart. She knew delight. The current of her blood was for the time cool and even-flowing. Life would not bring her many days like these, so free from regret and from desire; that she knew well, and ate the golden fruit of the present with unabated joy.
There were changes in her face. The harshness of her features was softening by some mysterious outward working of the soul within. If she lived another five years, that which had made her plain by over-emphasis of individuality would have become the principle of a noble type of beauty. She was not unconscious of it, and it contributed to her energy of hope. Face would ally itself with form a her body had strength and graceful ease of motion; the moulding of her limbs was ideal. Every drop of the blood in her veins was charged with health. The physical sufferings which had formerly assailed her, she seemed to have outgrown. Passion slept, but only to arrise with new force; the heart would not always lie in subjection to the mind.
A walk one day brought her back from Salcot by the old road. When she came to the Cottage at Wood End, she paused to view it. A labourer’s family lived there now, and there were two children playing by the oak trunk. As she stood the cottage-door opened, and Mr. Vissian came forth.
He raised his eyes and saw her; she met him half-way, and greeted him with a frank friendliness which he did not look for.
“Mrs. Vissian and myself were about to call on you,” the rector said, with a little embarrassment. “I am rejoiced to see you looking so well, Miss Warren.”
“You have been making a pastoral visit?” Ada remarked, as they walked on together.
“Yes. I dare say I come here rather oftener than I should in the natural course of things, owing to my associations with the place. My good friend Kingcote used to live here. I believe you met him once or twice at Knightswell?”