"Did you? I was so surprised when I read it in the Times; for you know May and I never corresponded—she was frantically angry with me. Do they know you are here?"
"No; I rarely write, and I am constantly moving about; but I know Guy is very much beloved in St. Gosport. We will go back to England one of these days, my darling, and give them the greatest surprise they have received since Sir Guy Thetford learned who he really was."
He smiled as he said it—the old bright smile she remembered so well. Tears of joy filled the beautiful, upturned eyes.
"And you will go back? Oh, Rupert! it needed but this to complete my happiness!"
He drew her closer, and then there was a long, delicious silence, whilst they watched together the late-rising moon climbing the misty hills above Castlemare.
CHAPTER XVII.
AT HOME.
Another sunset, red and gorgeous, over swelling English meadows, waving trees, and grassy terrace, lighting up with its crimson radiance the gray forest of Thetford Towers.
In the pretty, airy summer drawing-room, this red sunset streams through open western windows, kindling everything into living light. It falls on the bright-haired, girlish figure, dressed in floating white, seated in an arm-chair in the center of the room: too childish looking, you might fancy, at first sight, to be mamma to that fat baby she holds in her lap; but she is not a bit too childish. And that is papa, tall and handsome and happy, who leans over the chair and looks as men do look on what is the apple of their eye and the pride of their heart.