“The wretch!”
Lady Rea saw nothing of this; but Aunt Matty, who was beside her, did, and a look of quiet triumph came into her withered features. But nothing was said, and as for the cab, it rolled on and on quickly, till it came to the tree-shadowed hill beneath Lady Coutts’ park, and then, after a long walk up to the top of Highgate Hill, on and on again, till London was far behind, the soft green meads and the sheltered lanes reached; and while Sam pulled up at a roadside public-house, amongst half a dozen fragrant, high-laden hay carts, Richard led off his charge, with sinking heart, over a stile, and away midst waving cornfields, bright with poppy and bugloss; and by hedges wreathed with great white convolvuli, and the twining, tendrilled bryonies, or wild clematis.
Richard was grave, and his heart sank as he saw the joyous air of the young girl by his side, felt the light touch of her little hand, and when he met her eyes read in them so much gentle, trusting love, that he felt as if he had been a scoundrel to her, and that he was about to blight her life.
He was not a vain man, and he had used no arts to gain the sympathy that it was easy to read in the sweet face beside him but he could not help telling himself that it was but too plain; and he groaned in his heart as he thought of that which he had determined to say.
“Hark, listen!” cried the girl, as a lark rose from the corn close by. “Isn’t it beautiful? How different to those poor caged things in our street. Look, too, at the green there—four, five, twenty different tints upon those trees. Oh, you are losing half the beauties of those banks! Look at them, scarlet with poppies! There, too, the crimson valerian. How beautiful the foxgloves are! Why, there’s a white one. Who’d ever think that London could be so near!”
She stopped, panting, and held her hand to her side.
“You are tired?” he said, anxiously.
“Oh no,” she said, darting a grateful look in return for his sympathy—“it is nothing. I feel as if I should like to set off and run, but I think sometimes I am not so strong as I used to be. Mamma says I have outgrown my strength; but it is my cough.”
She said these last words plaintively, and there was a sad, pinched look in her face as she gazed up at him; but it lit up again directly as she met his eager, earnest eyes fixed upon her, and her trembling little hand stole farther through his arm.
“That’s right,” he said, patting it—“lean on me. I’m big and strong.”