“Oh! do! do!” exclaimed half a score of sweet voices. “By all means, Master Wade, find the gentleman. You have our permission to introduce him. Tell him we’re all dying to make his acquaintance.”
Walter went off among the crowd; traversed the camp in all directions; and came back without the object of his search.
“How cruel of him not to come!” remarked the gay Dayrell, as Walter was seen returning alone. “If he only knew the disappointment he is causing! We might have thought less of it, Master Walter, if you hadn’t told us he intended to be here. Now I for one shall fancy your fête very stupid without him.”
“He may still come,” suggested Walter. “I think there are some other guests who have not arrived.”
“You are right, Master Wade,” interposed one of the bystanders; “yonder’s somebody—a man on horseback—on the Heath, outside the palings of the park. He appears to be going towards the gate?”
All eyes were turned in the direction indicated. A horseman was seen upon the Heath outside, about a hundred yards distant from the enclosure; but he was not going towards the gate.
“Not a bit of it,” cried Dorothy Dayrell. “He’s changed his mind about that. See! He heads his horse at the palings! Going to take them? He is in troth! High—over! There’s a leap worth looking at!”
And the fair speaker clapped her pretty hands in admiration of the feat.
There was one other who beheld it with an admiration, which, though silent, was not less enthusiastic. The joy that had shone sparkling in the eyes of Marion Wade, as soon as the strange horseman appeared in sight, was now heightened to an expression of proud triumph.
“Who is he?” asked half a score of voices, as the bold horseman cleared the enclosure.