When the ladies withdrew, the general, who was the soul of hospitality, when pushing the decanters round—for he was vain of his clarets, Chateau Lafitte, Haut Brion, and Margaux—felt half inclined to relax and relent at times. Could Hew have been mistaken in that diabolical story about the cards? But if so, he was not mistaken on the subject of Falconer's admiration of his intended wife: and though such was utterly adverse to the wish of Sir Piers, he felt that he could forgive it, especially as, like Mrs. Garth, he felt that in the look and air, the expression of face, and bearing of Cecil Falconer, there were an undefinable something that brought painfully back to memory the face of another; and yet, between the two faces, that of his dead son—for his it was—and the face of Falconer, there was no especial likeness.
'Had poor Piers been living now, thought the general, 'he would have been nearly fifty years of age, which reminds me that I am getting too old to harbour thoughts of anger now.'
In the drawing-room, Cecil found the piano closed; there was evidently to be no music that evening, nor was he in the mood for it, except in so far that it might have served to cloak a few farewell words to Mary, whom he found occupied at chess with Mrs. Garth, and save that she trembled a little and changed colour at his entrance, she seemed unconscious of his presence, as the slow and silent game proceeded in its tedium: and leaving Sir Piers and Hew deep in some matter of local improvements to be made on a certain farm, he seated himself beside Miss Erroll, on an ottoman, a little way apart.
'And so you indeed go to-morrow?' she observed, for lack of something else to say apparently.
'Inexorably, Miss Erroll,' he replied, with a smile that was no smile at all; 'and after all the happiness I have enjoyed here I shall feel doubly lonely at Dumbarton, as it is most probable that the general may invite my brother officer here, to take my place.'
'Mr. Leslie Fotheringhame?' she said in a low voice, while her eyes drooped.
'Yes.'
'What leads you to think so?' she asked, with a little agitation of manner that Cecil could not fail to detect.
'He has once or twice said such was his intention.'
Such, indeed, had been the general's wish, but recent events had made him change his mind.