"Yes, he seems to have had a wire on a Sunday, on the day you came back from Fletchings."
And Boringdon had never told her this all-important fact! Barbara felt a sudden secret resentment against the young man. So it had lain with him to spare her those days of utter wretchedness; of perpetually waiting for one whom she believed to be in the near neighbourhood; nay more, those moments of sick anxiety, for at times she had feared that Berwick might be ill, physically unable to leave Fletchings or Chillingworth. But this most unreasonable resentment against Oliver she kept in her own heart.
The next to speak to her of Berwick had been Mrs. Turke. "So our Mr. Berwick's in London? But he'll be back soon, for he hasn't taken Dean with him. Sometimes months go by without our seeing the dear lad, and then all in a minute he's here again. That's the way with gentlemen; you never know when you have 'em!" And she had given Barbara a quick, meaning look, as if the remark had a double application.
Then came a day, the 8th of December, which Mrs. Rebell became aware was not like other days. For the first time since she had been at the Priory Madame Sampiero inquired as to the day of the month. Doctor McKirdy was more odd, more abrupt even than usual, and she saw him turn Boringdon unceremoniously from the door with the snarling intimation that Madame Sampiero did not wish to-day to be troubled with business matters. Mrs. Turke also was more mysterious, less talkative than usual; she went about her own quarters sighing and muttering to herself.
A sudden suspicion came into Barbara's heart; could it be that James Berwick was coming back, that they expected him to-day, and that none of them liked to tell her? If so, how wise of McKirdy to have sent away Oliver Boringdon! But then cold reason declared that if such was indeed the case, to make so great a mystery of the matter would be an insult to her, surely the last thing that any of them, with the exception perhaps of the old housekeeper, would dare to do?
Still, when at last, late in the morning, she was sent for by Doctor McKirdy, and informed curtly that someone was waiting for her in the grass walk, she made no doubt of who it could be. In her passion of relief, in her desire to bear herself well, to return, if it might be possible, to the old ideal terms on which she and Berwick had been before he had been seized with what she to herself now characterised as a passing madness, Barbara hardly noticed how moved, how unlike himself the old Scotchman seemed to be, and how, again and again, he opened his lips as if to tell her something which native prudence thrust back into his heart.
So great, so overwhelming was Barbara's disappointment when she saw that the man leaning on the iron gate leading to the now leafless rosery was Lord Bosworth, and not James Berwick, that she had much ado to prevent herself from bursting into tears. But she saw the massive figure before she herself was seen, and so was able to make a determined effort to conceal both her bitter deception, and also her great surprise at finding him there.
"As you are doubtless aware," Lord Bosworth began abruptly, "I come here three or four times a year, and McKirdy is good enough to arrange that on those occasions I can visit my child's grave without fear of interruption. I ventured to ask that you might be told that I wished to see you here, because I have a request to make you—"
He hesitated, and with eyes cast down began tracing with the heavy stick he bore in his hand imaginary geometrical patterns on the turf.