She was the first to speak.
"There is so much to say, and yet so little."
The Earl looked at her; her white dress touched the white flowers growing in the stone basin; her auburn hair hung lightly on to her slender neck, and her eyes rested on him intently.
"I should have come before," he said.
"Why?" she smiled, and he wondered why it was a sad smile. "Now we are both ready. At first it was bitter, but now——"
So it seemed she had never questioned he was bound to her, never questioned, either, his love. There was no mistaking the sincerity of her look, her voice. Miss Chressham was amazingly right.
The church-bells came up from the town of Bristol. It was Sunday, though till now my lord had forgotten it. He took a step or two across the grass, and the sun, growing stronger at the last, gleamed on his grey satin coat, and glittered in the brilliants at his throat.
"It was difficult for me," he said. "At first——"
"What of your brother?" she asked. "Susannah tells me that he has gone into business in Holland."
"He does well there." My lord's voice was disinterested.