"Forgive me," she said, "either Mrs. Lambart has omitted to tell me, fearing to shock me, or in my heedlessness I have forgotten. Are you indeed master here, dear Laurence? How is that? Can it be that your brother Dudley is dead?"
"Yes," he answered, "the old order has changed—and yet not changed perhaps so very much after all, for it appears the owners of Stoke Rivers, ancient and modern, are very much of one blood. But, in truth, Dudley is gone, and others have gone—God rest both him and them—and I reign in their stead."
"Yes, God rest his soul," she said; and then repeated softly—"Poor Dudley! poor unhappy Dudley!"
But Laurence, noting her pensive bearing, and hearing the gently regretful tones of her voice, was pricked pretty sharply by a point of jealousy from out the long past.
"Is it a matter of so very much grief to you, Agnes," he asked, "to hear the news of your cousin Dudley's death?"
Whereupon she turned on him eyes very reassuringly full of love; while—after a little space—her lips curved into a delicious and almost saucy smile.
"Ah! I feared you had grown old and wise," she exclaimed. "I was foolish to vex myself. I see you are indubitably the same Laurence as ever."
She laughed very sweetly, sweeping him a delicate curtsey.
"The very same Laurence as ever," she repeated exultingly.
Then she flitted away—as though, child-like, joy of heart must needs find relief in movement—down the long alley across the oblique shadows cast by the sentinel cypresses, until she reached the great, stone basin of the terminal fountain. Here she paused, gazing down at the smooth, slow movements of the sleepless fish.