But he longed also to thank the baronet in person. The tables were now turned. His own service had been amply repaid; and he hesitated to take advantage of the old invitation—in fear of being deemed an intruder. Under these circumstances the new one was something more than welcome.
Sevenoaks is no great distance from London. For all that, it is surrounded by scenery as retired and rural as can be found in the shires of England—the charming scenery of Kent.
It is only of late years that the railway-whistle has waked the echoes of those deep secluded dales stretching around Sevenoaks.
With a heart attuned to happiness, and throbbing with anticipated pleasure, did the late revolutionary leader ride along its roads. Not on horseback, but in a “fly” chartered at the railway station, to take him to the family mansion of the Vernons, which was to be found at about four miles’ distance from the town.
The carriage was an open one, the day clear and fine, the country looking its best—the swedes showing green, the stubble yellow, the woods and copses clad in the ochre-coloured livery of autumn. The corn had been all cut. The partridges, in full covey, and still comparatively tame, were seen straying through the “stubs”; while the pheasants, already thinned off by shot, kept more shy along the selvedge of the cover. He might think what fine sport was promised him!
He was thinking not of this. The anticipated pleasure of shooting parties had no place in his thoughts. They were all occupied by the image of that fair child, first seen on the storm-deck of an Atlantic steamer, and last in a balcony overlooking the garden of the Tuileries; for he had not seen Blanche Vernon since.
But he had often thought of her. Often! Every day, every hour!
And his soul was now absorbed by the same contemplation—in recalling the souvenirs of every scene or incident in which she had figured—his first view of her, followed by that strange foreshadowing—her face reflected in the cabin mirror—the episode in the Mersey, that had brought him still nearer—her backward look, as they parted on the landing-stage at Liverpool—and, last of all, that brief glance he had been enabled to obtain, as, borne along by brutal force, he beheld her in the balcony above him.
From this remembrance did he derive his sweetest reflection. Not from the sight of her there; but the thought that through her interference he had been rescued from an ignominious death, and a fate perhaps never to be recorded! He at least knew, that he owed his life to her father’s influence.
And now was he to be brought face to face with this fair young creature—within the sacred precincts of the family circle, and under the sanction of parental rule—to be allowed every opportunity of studying her character—perhaps moulding it to his own secret desires!