"Write stories, by all means," said Denzil, his eyes resting fascinated on the brim of her lowered hat. "But save your money for future emergencies. Meanwhile, it is holiday-time. Shall we postpone the discussion for a few weeks? I feel, in this weather, as if I did not want to talk business. Give me my holiday—you take yours. Stay here meanwhile, and when the summer days are over we can decide upon future plans. Come—show me the stables, the kitchen-garden, the palm-stoves—I have been away an age, and I want to look at everything!"
He held out his hand to her, and, with a hesitation which Miss Rawson remarked, she gave him hers. He raised her to her feet, and they stood together a moment, looking into each other's eyes.
Rona would not have been human had she failed to read the admiration in his. His heart swelled with the true Cophetuan delight. He had all, she had nothing but her beauty. He was master of his actions and his fortune; there was nobody to dictate to him, should he marry the beggar maid. And now the idea, which had so shyly nestled in his heart for two years, suddenly shook its wings and soared. He would marry this interesting girl, whose grace and dignity were worthy of being raised to his throne.
And for the first time the same idea struck Rona—struck her with a shock. Never till that moment had she thought of Denzil as a man who might love and wish to marry her. He had seemed older, too staid—as she said to David—too fiddle-faddly. But now that she was grown, up, she knew that the disparity between them was by no means too great—the difference between nineteen and thirty-three.
They wandered into the old walled fruit garden, down past a long strip of border, garnished in one place with bits of quartz in strange devices.
"I never come past here," said Denzil, falteringly, "without thinking of my dead brother."
"Your brother?" said the girl, in speechless amazement. "I never knew you had a brother!"
"No," he replied, in a deep voice, stopping before the bits of quartz—"I never speak of him. It is too distressing a subject; and, by my orders, nobody has ever mentioned him to you. But one day, perhaps, I shall be able to tell you about him. This was his garden, when he was a little chap. Old Penton, the gardener, keeps it up, as he used to like it kept. Do you see the rockery? He made it all himself. Poor fellow!" As he stood looking down upon the bits of stone, and the little ferns that grew still, though the stormy, wayward heart of the young man was dust, his eyes filled with tears. Here was he, Denzil, in possession of wealth, land, love, everything that makes life glorious; and his brother had crowned a career of folly by a death of crime.
The old gardener was working not far off. He came up to greet his master and say how well he looked.
"Aye," he said, "and there's poor Master Felux's bit o' garden. I always keeps it, so I do. I was rare and fond o' him when he wor a little lad. And I see his spirit walk, I did, one evening in spring, two year and more back. Soon after the noos of his death came it wor—and a Sunday evening. I see him as plain as I sees you two now—walking along the avenue. But the light was bad, and he slipped away, and I didn't see him no more." He brushed the back of his hand over his eyes, and his voice broke. "I says to my missus that night, 'No fear but what he's gone,' I says. 'For I've a-just seen him'; and she says, 'Tummus, you be a gawp!'—just like that. But for all her gawps I seen him—I seen him right enough—and his face as white as if he'd been in his coffin."