It was a handsome face—almost a perfect face; but was it the face of a man who might be trusted by his fellow-men?
A careworn face—handsome though it was. There was a nervous restlessness about the thin lips, a feverish light in the dark blue eyes.
More than once during the prolonged encounter at chess, Reginald Eversleigh had drawn aside one of the window-curtains, to look out upon the night.
Mr. Mordaunt, a devoted lover of all field-sports, was also restless and uneasy about the weather, peeping out every now and then, and announcing, in a tone of disappointment, the continuance of the frost.
In Mr. Mordaunt this was perfectly natural; but Lionel Dale knew that his cousin was not a man who cared for hunting. Why, then, was he so anxious about the meet which was to have taken place to-morrow?
His anxiety evidently was about the meet; for after looking out of the window for the third time, he exclaimed, with an accent of triumph—
"I congratulate you, gentlemen; you may have your run to-morrow. It no longer freezes, and there is a drizzling rain falling."
Mr. Mordaunt ran out of the drawing-room, and returned in about five minutes with a radiant face.
"I have been to look at the weathercock in the stable-yard," he said; "Sir Reginald Eversleigh is quite right. The wind has shifted to the sou'-west; it is raining fast, and we may have our sport to-morrow."
Lionel Dale's eyes were fixed on the face of his cousin as the country squire made this announcement. To his surprise, he saw that face blanch to a death-like whiteness.