CHAPTER XX.
Mr. Rayner had promised to return from Palaveram in time for dinner, but long, solitary hours till dusk still stretched before Hester on her return from morning service. She had not as yet yielded to the habit of taking a siesta, though she was assured that when the hot weather came she would find the need of it imperative. She sought instead companionship in her piano, rehearsing some of her old favourites, and then turned to a prettily bound volume of hymns set to music, which had been a wedding present from a Wesleyan friend. She tried over some of the airs, and coming on one which attracted her began to sing the words. Her sweet voice, which was so much missed in the ivy-mantled village church, vibrated melodiously through the verandah. So absorbed was she in her solace of song that she did not hear the arrival of a carriage on the gravel-sweep. Its occupant indeed stood at her elbow, silently looking down at her as her fingers strayed along the keys, before she was aware of his presence.
"Mark Cheveril!" she exclaimed at length, looking up with joy in her face. "This is a happy surprise!"
"It is so for me, anyhow. I wanted to have come earlier in the day to wish you a merry Christmas, but the Collector seemed dull, and I couldn't leave him. But better late than never. And to be greeted by the sound of your voice was good," he added, glancing at the slender, girlish figure on the music stool on which she had wheeled round to greet him in her surprise at his presence. "This will make a delightful paragraph in the letter to your mother I mean to date 'Christmas Day, Madras.' But I must really tell you before we pass on to other things a strange coincidence about this very hymn you were singing. You remember Mr. Morpeth whom we met at Mrs. Fellowes' that morning? I felt so drawn to him that I did what I don't think I ever confessed to you—I sought him out. When I stepped into his verandah I found him alone, and singing that very hymn." Mark hummed some of the lines—
"Light of those whose dreary dwellings
Borders on the shades of death."
"It has haunted me ever since. I must tell him of this coincidence. I have been corresponding with him, and mean to keep up the acquaintance. I heard from him that you had found your way to Vepery too, Hester, and are doing wonders there."
"Ah, that reminds me, Mark! A little bird told me only yesterday that you were the kind donor of our lovely piano for the girls' club. You can't think what a boon it is."
"I hope it's a decent one. I fear pianos are rather a lottery out here, and it would have lost a whole season to have ordered one from home."
"It has a beautiful tone, Mrs. Fellowes just loves it. It was a good thought of yours, Mark. How pleased mother will be when she hears you were the giver of the piano I told her about! I'm so glad Mrs. Fellowes wormed the secret out of Mr. Morpeth. Do you know I've never seen him since you left? He seems to elude me still—perhaps it's no wonder." Hester lowered her eyes, for she suddenly recalled her husband's reception of him, which she feared Mark must have overheard. "But notwithstanding," she said with a smile, "I don't think he does bear me a grudge, for Mrs. Fellowes told me he seemed pleased to hear I wished to go to see him with her. She says his house is full of interesting things."