‘Very well, Laura, you must have your own way. I’ll send Celia to keep you company.’
‘Please don’t,’ said Laura, quickly. ‘You know how fond I have always been of Celia—but just now I had rather be quite alone. She is so gay and light-hearted. I could hardly bear it. Don’t think me ungrateful, dear Mr. Clare; but I would rather face my trouble alone.’
‘I shall never think you anything but the most admirable of women,’ answered the Vicar; ‘and now put on your hat and walk as far as the gate with me. You are looking wretchedly pale.’
Laura obeyed, and walked through the grounds with her old friend. She had not been outside the house since her husband’s departure, and the keen wintry air revived her jaded spirits. It was along this chestnut avenue that she and John Treverton had walked on that summer evening when he for the first time avowed his love. There was the good old tree beneath whose shaded branches they had sealed the bond of an undying affection. How much of uncertainty, how much of sorrow, she had suffered since that thrilling moment, which had seemed the assurance of enduring happiness! She walked by the Vicar’s side in silence, thinking of that curious leave-taking with her lover a year and a half ago.
‘If he had only trusted me,’ she thought, with the deepest regret. ‘If he had only been frank and straightforward, how much misery might have been saved to both of us! But he was sorely tempted. Can I blame him if he yielded too weakly to the temptation?’
She could not find it in her heart to blame him—though her nobler nature was full of scorn for falsehood—for it had been his love for her that made him weak, his desire to secure to her the possession of the house she loved that had made him false.
Half-way between the house and the road they met a stranger—a middle-aged man, of respectable appearance—a man who might be a clerk, or a builder’s foreman, a railway official in plain clothes, anything practical and business-like. He looked scrutinisingly at Laura as he approached, and then stopped short and addressed her, touching his hat:—
‘I beg your pardon, madam, but may I ask if Mr. Treverton is at home?’
‘No; he is away from home.’
‘I’m sorry for that, as I’ve particular business with him. Will he be long away, do you think, madam?’