"He is not all in all. You know you are the first, always the first in my heart; but I am deeply grieved for Allan. If what you tell me is true, he is doomed to be most unhappy. He is so fond of her. He has placed all his hopes of happiness upon his marriage—and they are to be married in little more than a month. It will be heartless to break it off."
"If it isn't broken off, there will be a tragedy. I will thrust myself between them at the altar. The lying words shall not be spoken. I would rather shoot him—or her—than that she should perjure herself, swear to love another while she loves only me!"
"Geoffrey, how do you know? How can you be sure——"
"Our hands have touched; our eyes have met. That is enough."
He walked out of the window to the garden, and from the garden to the stables, where he ordered his dog-cart. His servant kept a portmanteau always ready packed. He left Discombe within an hour of that conversation with his mother, and he was on his way to London before noon. The first intimation of his departure which Mrs. Wornock received was a note which she found on the luncheon-table.
"I am off to the Hartz for a fortnight's tramp. Remember, something must be done to prevent this marriage. I shall return before the middle of August, and shall expect to find all settled.
"Address Poste Restante, Hartzburg."
CHAPTER XI.
"WHO KNOWS WHY LOVE BEGINS?"
The time was drawing near. The corn was cut and carried on many a broad sweep of hot chalky soil, and "summer's branding sun" had burnt up the thin grass on the wide bare down, where never shadow of tree or bush made a cool spot in the expanse of light and heat and dryness. The mysterious immemorial stones yonder on Salisbury Plain stood up against a background of cloudless blue; and the windows of the cathedral in the valley glittered and flashed in the sunshine. Only in the sober old close, and the venerable gardens of a bygone generation, within hedges that dead hands had planted, trees whose growth dead eyes had watched, was there coolness or shelter, or the gentle slumberous feeling of summer afternoon in its restful perfection.