“The man who robbed me of all my hopes!”
“Oh, hush! Do not speak so, Philip. There was some talk, before we left England, of a meeting—of angry words between you, and it was for this that I fostered Sir Murray’s desire to live abroad. But you will promise me, will you not—on your word—yours, Philip—that there shall never be a quarrel between you?”
“Lady Gernon,” said Philip, coldly, “your husband is safe from me. My madness is at an end, and I am now your cousin’s husband. There, for Heaven’s sake!” he cried, a change coming over him, “never let us refer to the past, and let us meet but seldom. Come back into the house. Forgive me if I speak bitterly, but the sight of your happiness would drive me to forget the duties I owe to others. Why did you come?”
“For my husband’s sake,” said Lady Gernon. “And now, from my soul, I thank you. I know how worthless are my promises,” she said, bitterly; “but I can confide in yours. Now let us return.”
The blood was mantling in Philip Norton’s forehead, and he was about to speak, when an end was put to the painful interview by the merry, prattling voice of a child, and Philip’s bright little fellow came running up, but only to draw back shyly on seeing the strange lady, who sank upon her knees with outstretched hands, as if hungering to clasp the child to her breast.
“Yours?—your boy, Philip?” she said.
“Mine, Lady Gernon,” said Norton, coldly, for he had once more regained control of himself. Then, stooping over the child, “Go to that lady, Brace,” he said; and in obedience the child suffered himself to be caressed, Lady Gernon kissing his bright little face eagerly, a tear or two falling the while upon his sunny hair.
Lady Gernon was still on her knees, holding the boy, who, forgetting his fear, was playing with her watch-chain, when slowly, and with courtly grace, conversing loudly the while, Sir Murray led Ada Norton into the garden, when the dread and undefined feelings in the latter’s heart were chased away, and a happy light beamed in her eye as she caught sight of the group before her; but there was an ill-concealed, angry glance directed at his wife by Sir Murray, and another at the child—an angry, jealous, envious look, but it was gone in an instant, and, stooping down, he too sought to take the child’s hand, but only for it to shrink from him hastily.
“Oh, Ada!” exclaimed Lady Gernon, with swimming eyes, as she laid her hand upon her cousin’s arm; and in those two words there seemed sufficient to disarm every doubt and suspicion—to break off the points of the thorns that had been ready to enter into her soul; and Ada, as much at rest as now seemed Lady Gernon, turned to her smilingly, ready to listen to her praises of the child’s beauty, and her prayers that they might be as of old.
“I have been so lonely abroad, Ada,” said Lady Gernon, sadly. “You will renew the old days, will you not?”