"There is to be a driving-party to Eastlake Abbey, after luncheon," she said; "you are to be carried down to the barouche and ride with your father and mother, and Lady Helena—Charley and Captain Hammond for your cavaliers."
"And you?"
"Sir Victor drives me."
"Alone, of course?" Trixy says, with a last little bitter sneer.
"Alone, of course," Edith answers coldly. Then she opens the door and disappears.
CHAPTER XI.
HOW LADY HELENA TOOK IT.
But the driving-party did not come off. The ruins of Eastlake Abbey were unvisited that day, at least. For while Edith and Trixy's somewhat unpleasant interview was taking place in one part of the house, an equally unpleasant, and much more mysterious, interview was taking place in another, and on the same subject.
Lady Helena had left the guests for awhile and gone to her own rooms. The morning post had come in, bringing her several letters. One in particular she seized, and read with more eagerness than the others, dated London, beginning "My Dear Aunt," and signed "Inez." While she sat absorbed over it, in deep and painful thought evidently, there came a tap at the door; then it opened, and her nephew came in.
She crumpled her letter hurriedly in her hand, and put it out of sight. She looked up with a smile of welcome; he was the "apple of her eye," the darling of her life, the Benjamin of her childless old age—the fair-haired, pleasant-faced young baronet.