"Ella! come here, darling. I am afraid we must go back to London and common life next week; so let us make an expedition to Mont St. Michel to-morrow. How does the tide serve?"
Three or four happy days were spent in visiting the strange fortress-prison and Old-World picturesque little town of Granville; in delicious rambles and abundant sketching. Ella was absolutely excited by the wealth of subjects, all of a new character to her, which offered themselves for her pencil. But Wilton had exhausted his slender capacity for repose, and, having thoroughly enjoyed himself, was once more longing for active life.
The day but one after their return from this brief expedition, a letter reached Wilton from the family solicitor. He had been out smoking, and talking of farming with the landlord; and Ella remarked, as he took the letter, that he exclaimed, as if to himself, "From old Kenrick! what can he want?" His countenance changed as he read: and then, throwing down the letter, he cried, "I wish to Heaven I had written to him before! He has passed away, doubting me!"
"Who?" asked Ella, trembling with a sudden apprehension of evil.
"Poor old St. George!—the old man of whom I have spoken to you."
"Your marriage has not broken his heart, I trust?"
"No; I am not sure he had a heart to break. But, Ella, you have turned pale, my own darling! Do not torment yourself; the living or dying of every one belonging to me can never affect my happiness with you; you are worth them all to me. But this letter—here, read it." And, passing one arm round her, Wilton held out the letter for her to peruse. "You see," he continued, "Kenrick (he is Lord St. George's solicitor and the Wiltons' solicitor generally) says he has died suddenly without a will. I am his heir-presumptive and nearest of kin—the only person entitled to act or to give directions. We must, therefore, start for London to-morrow. I will see Monsieur le Propriétaire, and settle with him at once."
Ella sighed, and cast one long look out into the garden, where the bees were humming and the first roses blooming, and away over the variegated, map-like country beyond, with its distant, dim blue line of sea—a farewell look at the scene where she had tasted for the first time in a somewhat sad existence, the divine cup of full, fresh delight; then, holding her cheek to her husband's kiss, gently disengaged herself and went away to prepare for turning over a new leaf in the book of life.