"To-morrow!" murmured Sir Reginald, with a sigh.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XXIII.
"ANSWER ME, IF THIS BE DONE?"
All through the night the drizzling rain fell fast, and on the morning of the 26th, when the gentlemen at the manor-house rectory went to their windows to look out upon the weather, they were gratified by finding that southerly wind and cloudy sky so dear to the heart of a huntsman.
At half-past eight o'clock the whole party assembled in the dining-room, where breakfast was prepared.
Many gentlemen living in the neighbourhood had been invited to breakfast at the rectory; and the great quadrangle of the stables was crowded by grooms and horses, gigs and phaetons, while the clamour of many voices rang out upon the still air.
Every one seemed to be thoroughly happy—except Reginald Eversleigh. He was amongst the noisiest of the talkers, the loudest of the laughers; but the rector, who watched him closely, perceived that his face was pale, his eyes heavy as the eyes of one who had passed a sleepless night, and that his laughter was loud without mirth, his talk boisterous, without real cheerfulness of spirit.
"There is mischief of some kind in that man's heart," Lionel said to himself. "Can there be any truth in the gipsy's warning after all?"
But in the next moment he was ready to fancy himself the weak dupe of his own imagination.