But it was not so. Lonely as the spot was, those two were not alone. A stealthy, gliding, female figure, dark and shadowy in the uncertain light, had followed Lady Eversleigh from the castle gates, and that figure was beside her now, as she walked with Black Milsom upon the river bank.
The spy crept by the side of the hedge that separated the river bank from the meadow; and sheltered thus, she was able to distinguish almost every word spoken by the two upon the bank, so clearly sounded their voices in the still night air.
"How did you find me here?" asked Lady Eversleigh, at last.
"By accident. You gave us the slip so cleverly that time you took it into your precious head to cut and run, that, hunt where we would, we were never able to find you. I gave it up for a bad job; and then things went agen me, and I got sent away. But I'm my own master again now; and I mean to make good use of my liberty, I can tell you, my lady. I little knew how you'd feathered your nest while I was on the other side of the water. I little thought how you would turn up at last, when I least expected to see you. You might have knocked me down with a feather yesterday, when that fine funeral came out of the park gates, and I saw your face at the window of one of the coaches. You must have been an uncommonly clever young woman, and an uncommonly sly one, to get a baronite for your husband, and to get a spooney old cove to leave you all his fortune, after behaving so precious bad to him. Did your husband know who you were when he married you?"
"He found me starving in the street of a country town. He knew that I was friendless, homeless, penniless. That knowledge did not prevent him making me his wife."
"Ah! but there was something more he didn't know. He didn't know that you were Black Milsom's daughter; you didn't tell him that, I'll lay a wager."
"I did not tell him that which I know to be a lie," replied Honoria, calmly.
"Oh, it's a lie, is it? You are not my daughter, I suppose?"
"No, Thomas Milsom, I am not—I know and feel that I am not"
"Humph!" muttered Black Milsom, savagely; "if you were not my daughter, how was it that you grew up to call me father?"