‘That’s the way my father has gone; you don’t suppose he sins with his eyes shut,’ said Phil. ‘He told me once (he’s nothing if not frank) that——’
Round the corner of the road came a sudden sound of wheels, a jingle of harness, a plash of many horses’ feet through the mire. Carrie glanced up to see a coach with outriders approaching; the men wore prune liveries, and at sight of them Phil stood still.
‘My father, Carrie,’ he said, and Carrie marvelled at his tense voice.
Splish-splash through the sparking mud came the horses, each with his jogging postilion a-back, whipping and spurring and cursing by turns, for the roads were heavy and the horses weary.
Phil and Carrie stood to the side, and Carrie took a curious glance into the coach, where a man sat, its only occupant. The next moment the coach had drawn up beside them, and the man, opening the door, stepped out on to the road, and bowed low before Carrie.
‘I scarce expected to find my son in such fair company, madam,’ he said, but with a little interrogative lift of his eyebrows.
Phil’s face flushed, but he answered in a clear, steady voice.
‘Sir, may I have the honour to present to you Miss Caroline Shepley? It has been my good fortune to make Miss Shepley’s acquaintance since coming to Wynford.’
‘Good fortune indeed,’ said Richard Meadowes, though the name went through him like a stab. Nemesis, Nemesis!—what was this? A woman in a blue hood stood before him, who wore the very features of Sebastian Shepley, and did he dream that Philip called her by that name?
A good thing it is we do not see into men’s hearts as we look into their faces! Carrie, as she stood all unconscious by the roadside in her blue hood, saw in Richard Meadowes only an elderly man, alert-looking, and of courteous address, who smiled on her with such a singularly pleasant and interesting smile that at once she wished to see him smile again. To this end she smiled herself, and with a gesture towards Phil, she said very sweetly—