"Now, you must see her," he went on, as with a trembling hand he rang a bell that stood by his side. In almost immediate answer to the summons Evarne appeared in the doorway.
Leo had made no mention of his daughter's striking personal beauty. Dutiful, unselfish, intelligent—these, and other eminently desirable mental and moral attributes had he ascribed to her as recommendations in Morris's eyes; but upon the subject of that physical quality that counts for so much more than all the virtues under the sun, the unworldly Leo had been silent. Kenyon had somehow expected to see a stolid, robust, and, to him, altogether uninteresting country damsel, and he with difficulty hid his surprise on beholding the fair vision that answered the summons.
Evarne's manner was touched with timidity, but she was not at all shy. She now stood silent and motionless for a moment, surveying her father's friend with a grave and interested gaze. Then, without waiting for any introduction, she advanced towards him with outstretched hand and a little smile of welcome upon her lips. Kenyon rose, and as he clasped her hand and looked with the eye of a connoisseur more closely into those charming features, he was half-ashamed at the consciousness of a distinct sense of satisfaction in the prospect of playing guardian angel to such a singularly lovely creature.
He left "The Retreat" that evening feeling thoroughly recompensed for the loss of his half-day's shooting, and that just occasionally the fulfilling of the duties demanded by friendship might bring their own reward.
Leo Stornway lingered for more weeks than either he or the doctor had anticipated, but one morning, just at the beginning of the New Year, he was found lying calm, pallid, pulseless. His race was run. Silently and in loneliness the end had come to a silent lonely life.
His desire had been to dispose of his earthly frame in as classical a manner as possible. The notion he would have really revelled in would have been a funeral pyre on the common, with the villagers solemnly running races and engaging in wrestling bouts in honour of his Manes, in true Greek style. This being obviously out of the question, he had set his heart upon the nearest thing possible—ordinary cremation. This urgent desire was found solemnly written on the back of a used envelope.
Hereupon arose trouble for Evarne. The local undertaker, who respectfully yet promptly put in an appearance, was aghast at her intention of arranging for the burning of her father's body. He had no sympathy whatsoever with innovations in his staid and respectable business.
"It's the last thing you will ever be able to do for your dear, dead parent, Miss Evarne," said the dour-looking man. "Give him a solid coffin—it needn't even be oak, we have good lines in elm and ash—but do give him a decent coffin, and have him put under the earth like he ought to be!"
Mrs. Jarman was of opinion that such a departure from conventionality would be absolutely indecent. She also waxed eloquent in another direction.
"I allus thought you loved your poor dead Pa. I could 'ave sworn you wouldn't 'ave 'urt a 'air of his 'ead!" she repeated again and again, as if Evarne's resolve now disposed of that supposition once and for all.