"'An old desire of her heart,'" he repeated, with a helpless air. "What can that mean?"
"I haven't a notion," replied the Fräulein, reflecting his helplessness upon her own commonplace countenance, "unless it were that she has an idea of going on the stage. So many girls are mad about the stage nowadays. And Hilda is so pretty. I know when we had private theatricals here last Christmas for the twins' juvenile party, everybody was in raptures with Hilda's acting. People told her she would make a great sensation if she were to appear in London."
"People are a parcel of idiots!" cried Bothwell savagely. "Yes, I remember the theatricals. I was at the party, you know; and there was a cub who made love to Hilda. Yes, I remember."
The cub in question was the eldest son of a neighbouring landowner, and heir to a fine estate; but Bothwell had looked on the innocent lad with abhorrence, even in those early days when his own attachment to Hilda had been in its dawn.
"No, she would not think of going on the stage," said Bothwell, after a pause, during which he had paced up and down the room two or three times in an agitated way; "that is impossible. She would not be mad enough for that. There must be something else. The desire of her heart. What can it mean?"
The Fräulein could not offer any suggestion, except that idea of the stage. "She is so passionately fond of Shakespeare," she said. "I have heard her recite the whole of Juliet and Portia without faltering. She has such a memory. I shouldn't be surprised if she were to come out as Juliet at Covent Garden next week."
Miss Meyerstein's sole knowledge of the London stage was derived from biographies of the Kembles and their contemporaries. She believed in the two patent theatres as existing facts; and she thought that Shakespearean débutantes were appearing and taking the town by storm periodically all the year round.
"I must go to Plymouth by the five-o'clock train," said Bothwell hurriedly. "Will you kindly let my horse stay in your stables and be looked after till to-morrow morning, Miss Meyerstein? I rode him over here at a rather unmerciful rate, and he'll be all the better for a rest. I shall walk to Penmorval, and get myself driven from there to the station. Good-bye."
He had gone before the Fräulein could answer him; but that good-natured person rang the bell and requested that Mr. Grahame's horse might be taken care of for the night, and that anything he required might be given to him.
Bothwell found his cousin full of sympathy, but was unable to give him any advice or assistance, as Miss Meyerstein had been. To Dora he opened his heart fully, showing her Hilda's letter, and breaking out every now and then into angry denunciations of Lady Valeria.