“I—think—he is there,” stammered Anne.
There he was. A handsome carriage was drawing up to the gate, the baronet’s badge upon its panels. Sir Robert sat inside. A footman came up the path and thundered at the door.
Not very long afterwards—it was in the month of June—Anne and her husband were guests at a London crush in Berkeley Square. It was too crowded to be pleasant. Anne began to look tired, and Sir Robert whispered to her that if she had had enough of it, they would go home. “Very gladly,” she answered, and turned to say good-night to her hostess.
“Anne! How are you?”
The unexpected interruption, in a voice she knew quite well, and which sent a thrill through her, even yet, arrested Anne in her course. There stood Henry Angerstyne, his hand held out in greeting, a confident smile, as if assuming she could only receive him joyfully, on his handsome face.
“I am so much surprised to see you here; so delighted to meet you once again, Miss Lewis.”
“You mistake, sir,” replied Anne, in a cold, proud tone, drawing her head a little up. “I am Lady Tenby.”
Walking forward, she put her arm within her husband’s, who waited for her. Mr. Angerstyne understood it at once; it needed not the almost bridal robes of white silk and lace to enlighten him. She was not altered. She looked just the same single-minded, honest-hearted girl as ever, with a pleasant word for all—except just in the moment when she had spoken to him.
“I am glad of it: she deserves her good fortune,” he thought heartily. With all his faults, few men could be more generously just than Henry Angerstyne.