"I trust we may," replied Douglas, earnestly.
Miss Graham was bonneted and cloaked for the journey. She had dressed herself entirely in black, in respectful regard of the melancholy circumstances attending her departure. Nor did she forget that the sombre hue was peculiarly becoming to her. She wore a dress of black silk, a voluminous cloak of black velvet trimmed with sables, and a fashionable bonnet of the same material, with a drooping feather.
Douglas conducted his guests to the carriage, and saw Miss Graham comfortably seated, with her shawls and travelling-bags on the seat opposite.
It was with a glance of mournful tenderness that Miss Graham uttered her final adieu; but there was no responsive glance in the eyes of Douglas Dale. His manner was serious and subdued; but it was a manner not easy to penetrate.
Gordon Graham flung himself back in his seat with a despairing groan.
"Well, Lydia," he said, "this accident in the hunting-field has been the ruin of all our hopes. I really think you are the most unlucky woman I ever encountered. After angling for something like ten years in the matrimonial fisheries, you were just on the point of landing a valuable fish, and at the last moment your husband that is to be goes and gets drowned during a day's pleasure."
"What should you say if this accident, which you think unlucky, should, after all, be a fortunate event for us?" asked Lydia, with significance.
"What the deuce do you mean?"
"How very slow of comprehension you are to-day, Gordon!" exclaimed the lady, impatiently; "Lionel Dale's income was only five thousand a year—very little, after all, for a woman with my views of life."
"And with your genius for running into debt," muttered her brother.