He turned and walked beside her, suiting his steps to hers, for some moments before replying.
“I was not here at all,” he said at length, apologetically; “I was far away from you. It was impolite. I am sorry.”
He intended that she should laugh, and she did so softly. “Where were you?” she inquired, glancing at him beneath her golden lashes.
Again he paused.
“There is,” he said at length, “an old château in Morbihan—many miles from a railway—in the heart of a peaceful country. It has a moat like this—there are elms—there are rooks that swing up into the air like that and call—and one does not know why they do it, and what they are calling. Listen, little girl—they are calling something. What is it? I think I was there. It was impolite—I am sorry, Miss Carew.”
She laughed again sympathetically and without mirth; for she was meant to laugh.
He looked back over his shoulder at times as if the calling of the rooks jarred upon his nerves.
“I do not think I like them—” he said, “now.”
He was not apparently disposed to be loquacious as he had been at first. Possibly the rooks had brought about this change. Hilda also had her thoughts. At times she glanced at the water with a certain shrinking in her heart. She had not yet forgotten the moments she had passed at the edge of the moat the night before. They walked right round the moat and down a little pathway through the elm wood without speaking. The rooks had returned to their nests and only called to each other querulously at intervals.
“Has it ever occurred to you, little girl,” said the Vicomte d'Audierne suddenly, “to doubt the wisdom of the Creator's arrangements for our comfort, or otherwise, here below?”