'My darling—hush—this will never do,' urged Olive, who became alarmed by the chance of some new esclandre.
'I don't understand all this, Lady Aberfeldie,' said Sir Paget, greatly ruffled, when he saw that handsome and always serenely calm matron; 'your daughter is an enigma to me,' he added, ashamed to acknowledge what he suspected and she perfectly knew. 'I sometimes surprise her in tears, and, if I ask the cause, she pleads a passage in a novel, or that her music made her sad. Stuff and nonsense! I should like to see the book or hear the music that would wring tears from me.'
'Try change of scene,' said Lady Aberfeldie.
Daily Eveline's hazel eyes seemed to become larger and brighter, while her face grew paler, and all the delicate rose-leaf colour and complexion faded out of it. The lines of her young features, if sorrowful, were very sweet, and her eyes, if somewhat sad, seemed calm in expression now. Yet the girl had ever before her the last haunting look that Evan gave her as he marched past, amid the wild hurly-burly of the dense crowd that surged around the departing Black Watch—the long, silent, and indescribable look of those who gaze their last upon the silent dead; for dead she was to him!
At times, when quite alone, she would linger on her knees, in prayer for his safety, and that his days should be ever happy—often with her open Bible before her, but without looking at it, like many honest folks, as if to have it there would work a spell.
Her life, as yet, was one of constant dread—the effort to hide her anxiety and sorrow, with her recent love for another, under a hollow smile. She feared even to sleep, lest in a dream the name of Evan might escape her.
She would get over all this nonsense in time, her mother thought; for in time people get over everything.
Sir Paget thought he would take that lady's advice, and try change of scene; and conceiving, not unwisely, that she would be infinitely better away from the military associations of Portsmouth—the incessant arrival and departure of crowded transports, the marching in and out, the bugling, drumming, and drilling daily and hourly of 'those infernal soldiers' on the grassy common between Puddicombe Villa and Southsea Castle, he resolved to take her abruptly to his house in London, though the season was long since over, the town and the parks empty—not that the latter fact would affect Eveline in the least.
'He is taking me to London, Olive dear, away from you,' said she, sadly; for with Olive alone could she commune in secret.
'He is wise. London will not be associated with Evan Cameron. You cannot think so much there as here by the seashore.'