"Ah! Mr. Rivers," he exclaimed, "you will not remember me. It is many years since we met. You were a little shaver in an Eton-jacket and round collar. And your poor uncle passed away quite suddenly at last?—Not a matter for regret, I venture to think. Few men would have been more fretted by a consciousness of failing powers. Remarkable intellect"—Mr. Wormald keckled softly, as he passed with the young man into the library—"quite beyond me, out of my humble range altogether, you know, Mr. Rivers. I admired his conversation; yet I cannot venture to pretend I attached any intelligible meaning to one-half of what your uncle said. But our business relations were very simple. He disliked business too much to wish to prolong the discussion of it. You will find all legal arrangements very direct. The death duties will be heavy; but, otherwise there are no deductions, I believe, save one or two small legacies to the servants.—Dinner, yes, Mr. Rivers, the earlier the better for me. I should be glad to put in a long evening with Armstrong; then we will have everything ready for you in the morning. I have an appointment with a client at five to-morrow afternoon, so I will ask you to let me go up by the two o'clock. I shall not need to encroach on your time to-night."
Therefore it happened, that, comparatively early Laurence found himself free to go down the red-carpeted corridor, pull back the heavy, leather-lined curtain, and enter the room of strange and delectable meetings once again. What fortune, good or bad, awaited him, he could not even surmise. He had learned one thing at least, that, in this connection, nothing was certain save the unforeseen. Nevertheless, he was sensible of slight surprise on finding the room shrouded in vague gloom. By some oversight the electric light had not been turned on. But the March evenings were long, and he had come to the trysting-place before the accustomed hour. The day was not wholly dead yet, and twilight lingered in the neighbourhood of the bay-window. After his first movement of surprise, Laurence found a restful charm in the soft obscurity surrounding him. Once again the room had resumed its effect of friendliness; and if his fairy-lady was not there as yet, no more were malign and opposing powers. The place was kindly and peaceful. It, like the weather, had settled back into a mild and engaging mood.
The young man felt his way across to the window, and sat down in one of the gilt-framed, brocade-covered armchairs on the right of the bay. There he waited, looking out now at the garden, growing mysterious and shadowy in the deepening dusk; now at the tall, satin-wood escritoire, the highly polished surfaces of which, reflecting the expiring light, glistened so that the shape of it remained visible after surrounding objects had faded from sight.
How long he waited Laurence did not know, nor did he greatly care. He had been very actively employed for the better part of the last six-and-thirty hours, and both as to mind and body he was in an unusually quiescent state. His energies were in pleasant suspension. The dimly seen room swam before his eyes. He made no effort of resistance. A mist clouded his vision, clouded all his faculties, and he slept.
When he awoke it was high noon. He lay on the stone bench beneath the lime-trees, the innumerable leaves of which rustled and danced in the warm, summer wind. He awoke laughing from a wholly delicious dream—a young man's dream of very lovely love, which after long denial and delay had found perfect fulfilment. He felt very light and content. Life was sweet, this smiling, summer world infinitely hopeful and sympathetic. Then he stretched himself, smoothed the revers of his flowered, silk waistcoat, and straightened his lawn cravat, which had been somewhat displaced during the pleasant relaxation of slumber. He rubbed a trifle of dust, too, from the knee of his plumb-coloured breeches with his handkerchief. Then he stood up still laughing, yet with a growing hunger in his heart, since he began to realise that those delights were his, as yet, only within the gates of sleep and of dreams. He stretched again, a sigh mingling with his laughter; and then discovered that through the shifting, dappled sunlight and shadow Agnes Rivers approached him with her pretty, flitting, bird-like grace. To-day she wore a pale, lemon-yellow, India-muslin dress, spotted with cinnamon-coloured sprigs, and a white and cinnamon coloured waist ribbon embroidered in blown roses and tiny buds. A black, velvet work-bag, with long yellow and black strings to it, hung upon her arm; while her charming head and neck showed up in high relief against the open blue-grey sunshade she carried tilted over her right shoulder. Laurence went forward to meet her, all aglow from his recent sleep and from the fond imaginations of that delicious dream. Half playfully, half in sharp desire of mastery, he took away her sunshade and work-bag, and threw them down upon the turf. Then grasping both her hands in his, he kissed and kissed them, holding them high and bending his head so that his eyes were on a level with hers. And there must have been something in his eyes fearful, though enchanting, to her perfect maidenliness, for she flushed and tried to withdraw her hands, moving back a step from him with an air of questioning and innocent dignity.
"Laurence, Laurence," she said chidingly, "what does this mean? What has taken you?"
"Only happiness," he answered, "of which, having seen the dear vision, I very badly need the still dearer reality."
"Ah!" she said, "and yet you will go away—how soon we do not know—to this most unhappy war, and leave me desolate."
"Yes, and it is best so, sweetheart," he replied; serious, though still smiling—she was so pure, so trustful, and so very fair. Her gentle beauty racked him—"Best so," he repeated—"best pass the time honourably, fighting for king and country, until your twenty-first birthday is past, and Dudley can no longer forbid our marriage, and I can claim you, make and keep you mine forever and a day—"
And thereupon he stopped abruptly, for his elder brother had come upon them unperceived—Dudley, thin and tall, clothed in sad-coloured, brown-grey coat and vest, the locks of his long, pale hair stirred by the summer wind, in his hand a bundle of papers—Dudley, whose high, narrow head, refined features, and deep-set, fanatical eyes reminded Laurence strangely of his uncle, Montagu Rivers, lying upstairs in the carven, ebony bed, with the crystal memento mori and the silver bell of the elegantly poised Mercury handle on the table beside him.—But how was that? How could it be? He confused two generations. Dudley Rivers's coffin he had seen, in the vault of the little, Norman church, only this morning. The dust lay thick on it. For more than half a century it had reposed there undisturbed; whereas his uncle, Montagu Rivers, died but last night!