So, and with many such prayers she struggled against the dominion of evil, kneeling meekly in the leafy stillness of that deep beechwood, where no human eye beheld her devotions. So in the long solitude of the summer day she held commune with heaven, and fought against that ever-recurring memory of past happiness, that looking back to the joys and emotions of those placid hours at Chilton Abbey, before the faintest apprehension of evil had shadowed her friendship with Fareham. Not to look back; not to remember and regret. That was the struggle in which the intense abstraction of the believer, lifting the mind to heaven, alone could help her. Long and fervent were her prayers in that woodland sanctuary where she made her pious retreat; nor was her sister forgotten in those prayers, which included much earnest supplication for the welfare here and hereafter of that lighter soul for whom she had ever felt a protecting and almost maternal love. Years counted for very little in the relations between these sisters.
The day wore to its close—the most solemn day in Angela’s life since that which she had spent in the Reverend Mother’s death-chamber, kneeling in the faint yellow glow of the tall wax-candles, in a room from which daylight was excluded. She remembered the detachment of her mind from all earthly interests as she knelt beside that death-bed, and how easily her thoughts had mounted heavenward; while now her love clung to this sinful earth. How had she changed for the worse, how was she sunk from the holy aspirations of that time!
CHAPTER XXV.
HIGH STAKES.
Angela had eaten her lonely supper, and was sitting at her embroidery frame between nine and ten, while the sounds of bolts and bars in the hall and corridors, and old Reuben’s voice hectoring the maids, told her that the servants were closing the house before going to bed. Reuben would be coming to her presently, no doubt, to remind her of the lateness of the hour, wanting to carry her candle to her chamber, and as it were to see her safely disposed of before he went to his garret. She meant, on this occasion, to resist his friendly tyranny, having so little inclination for sleep, and hoping to find peace of mind and distraction in this elaborate embroidery of gold thread and many-coloured silks, which was destined to adorn her father’s person, on the facings of a new-fashioned doublet.
Suddenly, as she bent over the candle to scrutinize the shading of her silks, the hollow sound of hoofs broke upon the silence, and in a minute afterwards a bell rang loudly.
Who could it be at such an hour? Her father, no doubt; no one else. He had hurried his business through, and returned a day earlier than he had hoped. Or could it be that he had fallen sick in London, and Denzil had come to tell her ill news? Or was it a messenger from her sister? She had time to contemplate several evil contingencies while she stood in the hall watching Reuben withdraw various bolts and bars.
The door swung back at last, and she saw a man in high-riding boots and slouched hat standing on the threshold, while in the moonlight behind him she could distinguish a mounted groom holding the bridle of a led horse, as well as the horse from which the visitor had just dismounted.
The face that looked at her from the doorway was the face which had haunted her with cruel persistency through that long day, chaining her thoughts to earth.
Fareham stood looking at her for a few moments, deadly pale, while she was collecting her senses, trying to understand this most unlooked-for presence. Why was he here? Ah, no doubt, a messenger of evil.
“Oh, sir, my sister is ill!” she cried; “I read sorrow in your face—seriously ill—dangerously? Speak, my lord, for pity’s sake!”