This was the first intimation which the baronet received that Hilary was not in London, and it made instantly clear to him Stella’s disappearance from the Chase in the evening of the preceding day. She, his own daughter, Miss Cranstoun of the Chase, was actually carrying on a love affair at his very lodge gates, and making appointments with a farming adventurer at an inn on her father’s land, under the eyes of hostlers, and potmen, and farm laborers.
Rage almost choked him as he laid his hand on the door of the coffee-room, and the sight which met his eyes as he opened it was hardly calculated to assuage his anger. A superbly handsome young giant, with one arm in a sling, was seated close to Stella in a window-seat at the farther end of the room. It was easy enough to see that they were lovers. He was speaking eagerly, and she was hanging on his words, with her two hands clasped in one of his.
On Sir Philip’s entrance they started, and both of them rose to their feet; but Hilary still retained Stella’s hand.
Sir Philip carefully closed the door behind him, and came close up to the other two occupants of the room. In spite of the storm which raged within him, he was beyond everything anxious to avoid any scene by which his private affairs would become known to the people of the inn.
It was therefore in a voice so low as to be inaudible to any possible listeners outside the room that he addressed himself to Hilary, fixing him with his cold, glittering, light eyes as he spoke.
“What is your name?”
“Hilary Pritchard.”
“And what are you doing here with my daughter?”
“I have been asking her to marry me, Sir Philip!”
“You are not aware, then, that she is already engaged to be married to Lord Carthew, by whose want of judgment a fellow like you got introduced into a respectable house.”