"I shall never have love-making enough," he laughed. "I shall bore you awfully sometimes, I have no doubt; but when the heart is full the lips must speak. And as to walking—it is a long walk—do you think you can?"
"As I am to become a naturalized Englishwoman, the sooner I take to
English habits the better. I shall at least make the attempt."
"And we can drive back in time for dinner. I shall be delighted to show you the old place—your future home, where we are to spend together so many happy years."
They set off. It was a delightful walk, that sunny day, across fields, down fragrant green lanes, where the hedges in bloom made the air odorous, and the birds sang in the arching branches overhead. A long, lovely walk over that quiet high-road, where three-and-twenty years ago, another Sir Victor Catheron had ridden away forever from the wife he loved.
With the yellow splendor of the afternoon sunlight gilding it, its tall trees waving, its gray turrets and towers piercing the amber air, its ivied walls, and tall stacks of chimneys, Catheron Royals came in view at last. The fallow deer browsed undisturbed, gaudy peacocks strutted in the sun, a fawn lifted its shy wild eyes and fled away at their approach. Over all, solemn Sabbath stillness.
"Welcome to Catheron Royals—welcome as its mistress, my bride, my love," Sir Victor Catheron said.
She lifted her eyes—they were full of tears. How good he was—how tenderly he loved her, and what a happy, grateful girl she had reason to be. They entered the house, admitted by a very old woman, who bobbed a curtsey and looked at them with curious eyes. Two or three old retainers took care of the place and showed it to strangers.
Leaning on her lover's arm, Edith Darrell walked through scores of stately rooms, immense, chill halls, picture-galleries, drawing-rooms, and chambers. What a stupendous place it was—bigger and more imposing by far than Powyss Place, and over twice as old. She looked at the polished suits of armor, at battle-axes, antlers, pikes, halberds, until her eyes ached. She paced in awe and wonder down the vast portrait-gallery, where half a hundred dead and gone Catherons looked at her sombrely out of their heavy frames. And one day her picture—hers—would hang in solemn state here. The women who looked at her from these walls lay stark and stiff in the vaults beneath Chesholm Church, and sooner or later they would lay her stark and stiff with them, and put up a marble tablet recording her age and virtues. She shivered a little and drew a long breath of relief as they emerged into the bright outer day and fresh air once more.
"It's a wonderful place," she said; "a place to dream, of—a place such as I have only met before in English books. But there is one room among all these rooms which you have not shown me, and which I have a morbid craving to see. You will not be angry if I ask?"
"Angry with you?" Sir Victor lifted his eyebrows in laughing surprise.
"Speak, Edith, though it were half my kingdom."