'My little niece!' she exclaimed from time to time. 'Who would have thought it possible?'
Before she had realised the extent of her wonder at Marion's activities, she found herself out of her depth, speechless, confounded, at Sampson's revelations concerning Madame Romaine's little sempstress.
From Simone back to Marion, from Marion and the unknown Roger back to Simone, Lady Fairfax's thoughts ran when at last Sampson paused in his recital. The Colonel, watching her face, was secretly amused. The anger which had been stored up for him on account of his 'desertion' of Marion never even found voice; the dismay and disappointment Lady Fairfax had felt in the manner of her niece's departure from Kensington was entirely swallowed up in the thought of this new, strange Marion. 'My little niece,' she murmured again.
While she was still pondering, the two coaches drove into Garth. A minute later, Marion's arms were round her, Marion's lips on her cheek. 'Dear, dear Aunt Constance,' she cried, 'I never dreamed you would come all this way to Cornwall.'
'I suppose you thought I should be content to sit in Tunbridge playing "I love my Love with an A,"' retorted the lady, her eyes nevertheless suspiciously moist as she kissed her niece. She held the girl at arm's length. 'Dear heart,' she said gently, 'I have feared for you greatly, all these days.'
'There was no other way,' said Marion, in tremulous tones. 'Do not be angered with me, Aunt Constance.'
'And a fine story you have left behind,' grumbled Lady Fairfax, recovering her old manner. 'Rumours of runaway marriages flying round Kensington, and the Court not quite certain whether it can any longer tolerate the aunt of such a niece.'
Marion's smiling eyes ran beyond the lady to two figures just emerging from the courtyard.
'Why, there is Captain Beckenham,' she cried. 'Welcome to Garth, Sir.' Then as she rose from her curtsey, 'Simone is on the terrace,' she added gravely.
'Oho!' said Lady Fairfax softly, with a quick look at her niece as, followed by Sampson and Beckenham, the two walked round into the garden. 'Blows the wind from that quarter? Faith! 'Tis an uncertain world. And not a stone of this old place altered,' she mused as she went on. 'But how it has shrunk! It seemed to me, when I was a child playing in this garden, to be as big as the Tower of London.' She stopped and looked at the grey gabled house. 'Not a stone altered,' she repeated. 'And I declare if that isn't my elder sister Keziah sitting yonder. Dear, dear, I hope I'm not going to be whipped. And where is—— Ah! Simone, come here at once!'