Many last words were exchanged, as Eugene assisted in the arrangement of the extra wraps round Mary which the evening air rendered requisite; but they were at length cut short by Mrs. de Burgh's movement of the reins and the consequent springing forward of the ponies, when he stepped back and regretfully waved his hand in adieu.
"Well, Mary, I think we have done very well," Mrs. de Burgh exclaimed, when they had driven on a few hundred yards. "Now look back and say how you feel when you fancy yourself, in a few months perhaps, established mistress of this fine old place."
Mary turned her head as she was desired, but probably more as an excuse for taking a last look at Eugene, who she could see slowly withdrawing back into the house, than for the reason suggested.
Then indeed she suffered her eye to wander over the wide mansion, but turning back with a half smile—half sigh—she murmured:
"I cannot as yet quite realize that idea, dear Olivia."
"Well, my dear Mary," Mrs. de Burgh gaily replied, "then I hope you may very soon have it in your power to realize the fact."
After a day of mental excitement and bodily fatigue such as they had undergone, the ladies did not of course feel equal to keeping up the animated and unbroken conversation of the morning. Mary for the most part of the way, lent back in the carriage in the silent indulgence of the ample source of thought and meditation afforded her by the events of the day, whilst Mrs. de Burgh drove but weariedly, and after her first animated address, made but languid attempts at reference or remark upon the incidents of the visit.
There was one important communication which she did however make in a careless quiet way, perhaps owing to the same physical exhaustion, but which seemed certainly rather disproportionate to the interest and magnitude of the facts it conveyed.
"Bye the bye," she said, à-propos to something to which Mary had alluded concerning Eugene, "I promised to tell you about his brother. His elder brother, you must know—"
"Yes," interrupted Mary, "I thought so from the picture I saw at Montrevor, of Eugene—and, I suppose, his brothers, the youngest of whom, Eugene pointed out to me as himself."