The night wore on, and the two men gradually grew to view one another through the rosiest glamour. Luffington was ready to swear that his companion was the most entertaining he had ever encountered, and Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy, as he subsided into sleep upon his friend’s sofa, knew not whether he was most satisfied in having gained his point about the room—albeit Luffington enjoyed the bed—or in having made the acquaintance of such a remarkably agreeable young fellow—no nonsense, no cockloftiness, no French Atheism, or any other perverse ’isms for that matter, he murmured as he wandered into the devious country of dreams.
Early next morning Luffington walked down to the priest’s cottage, to describe the night’s adventures to his friend. They paced the garden pathway, Fred puffing a cigar, and both were enjoying a hearty laugh over the story, when two figures stood upon the bright edge of meadow that led into the deer-park. Clear and unshadowed in the morning sunshine, it was as pleasant a picture as the eye of man could desire, and to Fred, after his travels, all the pleasanter for being so distinctly English. A fair, handsome lady, in a light tweed dress, a broad-brimmed hat tied under her chin with long blue ribbons; from her arm swung a long-legged child, short-skirted, with an Irish red cloak blown out from her shoulders, upon the swell of which her long bright hair flowed like a sunny streamer. The child was looking up with an urgent charming expression, and talking with extreme vivacity. The lady smiled down upon her, tapped her cheek, and carried her along at a quick pace toward the cottage.
‘Her ladyship and her stepdaughter,’ said the priest. ‘It’s beautiful to see how they love one another. If all mothers were like that stepmother! But the wisest of us talk a deal of nonsense about women. Isn’t she handsome?’
Luffington admitted that she was, in the strictly English way—somewhat empty and expressionless, and feared that forty would find her fat.
The countess stopped at the gate, and chatted most affably. She gave the priest a commission that postponed their projected excursion till mid-day, and kindly invited Luffington to look over the Hall at his leisure. The little girl offered to show him her collection of butterflies, and then skipped away, with her blonde hair and red cloak blown out sideway like a sail.
‘Has the Countess of Harborough no children of her own?’ asked Luffington.
‘No; Lady Alice is the earl’s only child, and both he and the countess adore her.’
The postponement of their excursion drove Luffington alone into the solitary woods. But solitude among trees had no terrors for him; enchantment sat upon his errant mind as fancy led him over dappled sward and under the foliaged arches of mossy aisles. He came upon a bridge, under which a slant of water chattered its foamy way over large stones, and fell into sedate and scarce audible ripples between green banks and a thick line of shrubs. The outer bank he followed in a pastoral dream, to the accompaniment of a pretty consort of bird-song and babbling stream. He discovered that it led straight to Fort Mary, and here he sat on the edge of the pier, dangling his legs over the lake, as he smoked and forgot the hours.
The ‘Trianon’ lay behind, and as he lifted a leg, and sprang upon the gravel, he was conscious of the sound of a stifled sob carried, he believed, from the trees edging the sward, which the lout had rolled the day before. He stepped upon it, and he might have been walking on plush. As he went, the sound of sobs grew heavier, and he could count the checked breaths. He heard a man’s voice say softly: ‘My poor girl! Mary, Mary, courage.’ There was no mistaking that gentle and soothing voice, though he had heard it rasping and angry the night before. A break in the column of trees showed him a picture, the very reverse of the sweet domestic English picture that had charmed him a few hours ago.
The Countess of Harborough was weeping bitterly in Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy’s arms.