“What a pity Mr. Trent had to leave so soon,” remarked Miss Lavinia, with innocent regret, when he had gone. “I'm afraid we shall never persuade him to be really sociable, poor dear man! He seems a little moody to-day, don't you think?”—hesitating delicately.
“He's a bore!” burst out Sara succinctly.
Miles shook his head.
“No, I don't think that,” he said. “But he's a very sick man. In my opinion, Trent's had his soul badly mauled at some time or other.”
“He needn't advertise the fact, then,” retorted Sara, unappeased. “We all get our share of ill-luck. Garth behaves as if he had the monopoly.”
“There are some scars which can't be hidden,” replied Miles quietly.
Sara smiled a little. There was never any evading Herrick's broad tolerance of human nature.
It was nearly an hour later when at last she took her way homewards, carrying in her heart, in spite of herself, something of the gentle serenity that seemed to be a part of the very atmosphere at Rose Cottage.
Outside, the calm and fragrance of a June evening awaited her. Little, delicate, sweet-smelling airs floated over the tops of the hedges from the fields beyond, and now and then a few stray notes of a blackbird's song stole out from a plantation near at hand, breaking off suddenly and dying down into drowsy, contented little cluckings and twitterings.
Across the bay the sun was dipping towards the horizon, flinging along the face of the waters great shafts of lambent gold and orange, that split into a thousand particles of shimmering light as the ripples caught them up and played with them, and finally tossed them back again to the sun from the shining curve of a wave's sleek side.