But as he proceeded along a passage leading to the landing of the first flight of stairs, he heard a light step slowly descending the upper flight; and the next moment, the voice of Ellen speaking fondly to her child, fell upon his ear.
For nurses and mothers will talk to babes of even a few months old—although the innocents comprehend them not!
Reginald stepped into the recess formed by the door of one of the bed-chambers in that spacious mansion; and scarcely had he concealed himself there when he saw Ellen, with the child in her arms, pass across the landing at the end of the passage, and enter a room on the other side.
She wore a loose dressing-gown of snowy whiteness, which was confined by a band round her delicate waist, and was fastened up to the throat: her little feet had been hastily thrust into a pair of buff morocco slippers; and her long shining hair flowed over her shoulders and down her back.
The licentious eyes of the clergyman followed her from the foot of the stairs to the room which she entered; and even plunged with eager curiosity into that chamber during the moment that the door was open as she went in.
That glance enabled him to perceive that there was a bath in the apartment to which Ellen had proceeded with her child.
Indeed, the young lady, ever since her residence at Markham Place, had availed herself of the luxury of the bathing-room which that mansion possessed: and every morning she immersed her beautiful person in the refreshing element, which she enjoyed in its natural state in summer, but which was rendered slightly tepid for her in winter.
When the rector beheld her descend in that bewitching negligee,—her hair unconfined, and floating at will—her small, round, polished ankles glancing between the white drapery and the little slippers,—and the child, with merely a thick shawl thrown about it, in her arms,—and when he observed the bath in that chamber which she entered, he immediately comprehended her intention.
Without a moment's hesitation he stole softly from the recess where he had concealed himself, and approached the door of the bath-room.
His greedy eyes were applied to the key-hole; and his licentious glance plunged into the depths of that sacred privacy.