She was startled by his unexpected coming, and turning suddenly round, looked at him with a scared face; which was a new evidence against her in his troubled mind, a new testimony that she was keeping some secret from him.
He had left Tolldale Priory early that morning to give a day’s attention to that business of which he had been lately so neglectful, and had returned a couple of hours before his usual time for coming home.
“What brings you out into the garden this bitter afternoon, Eleanor?” he said, sternly; “you’ll catch cold in that thin shawl; and you, too, Laura; I should have thought a seat by the drawing-room fire far more comfortable than this dreary garden. Good evening, gentlemen; you had better bring your friend into the house, Mr. Darrell.”
The young man muttered something of an apologetic nature, and Monsieur Victor Bourdon acknowledged the lawyer’s cold salutation with an infinite number of bows and smirks.
“You have come home by an earlier train than usual, Gilbert,” Mrs. Monckton said, by way of saying something that might break the silence which had followed her husband’s coming; “we did not expect you until seven.”
“I came to Windsor by the three o’clock express,” answered Mr. Monckton. “I have not come straight home. I stopped at Woodlands to inquire after the invalid.”
Eleanor looked up with a new and eager expression in her face.
“And Mr. de Crespigny—he is better, I hope.”
“No, Eleanor, I fear that you will never see him again. The doctors scarcely hope that he will last out the week.”
The girl set her lips firmly, and raised her head with a resolute gesture—a mute expression of determination and defiance.