Eleanor had not seemed happy during those few honeymoon weeks. She had grown weary of the broad sands stretching far away, flat and desolate under the September sky, and weary of the everlasting and unbroken line that bounded that wide grey sea. This weariness she had displayed frankly enough; but she had not revealed its hidden source, which lay in her feverish impatience to go back to the neighbourhood of Hazlewood, and to make the discovery she wished to make, before Maurice de Crespigny’s death.
She had sounded her husband upon the subject of the old man’s health.
“Do you think Mr. de Crespigny will live long?” she asked, one day.
“Heaven knows, my dear,” the lawyer answered, carelessly. “He has been an invalid for nearly twenty years now, and he may go on being an invalid for twenty years more, perhaps. I fancy that his death will be very sudden whenever it does happen.”
“And do you think that he will leave his money to Launcelot Darrell?”
Eleanor’s face grew a little paler as she mentioned the young man’s name. The invisible familiar perched upon Mr. Monckton’s shoulder directed the lawyer’s attention to that fact.
“I don’t know. Why should you be interested in Mr. Darrell’s welfare?”
“I am not interested in his welfare; I only asked you a question, Gilbert.”
Even the malice of the familiar could take no objection to the tone in which Eleanor said this: and Mr. Monckton was ashamed of the passing twinge which Launcelot Darrell’s name had caused him.
“I dare say De Crespigny will leave his money to young Darrell, my dear,” he said, in a more cordial voice; “and though I have no very high opinion of the young man’s character, I think he ought to have the fortune. The maiden ladies should have annuities, of course. Heaven knows they have fought hard enough for the prize.”