Bexley came to him as he opened the parlour door. Thomas asked for Margery: he would have said a kind word to her. But Margery had gone out.
Maria stood at the window, and watched him through her tears as he walked down the path to the fly, supported by Bexley. The old man closed the door on his master and took his seat by the driver. Thomas looked forth as they drove away, and smiled a last farewell.
A farewell in the deepest sense of the word. It was the last look, the last smile, that Maria would receive in this life, from Thomas Godolphin.
CHAPTER III.
FOR THE LAST TIME.
In the old porch at Ashlydyat, of which you have heard so much, sat Thomas Godolphin. An invalid chair had been placed there, and he lay back on its pillows in the sun of the late autumn afternoon. A warm, sunny autumn had it been; a real “Eté de St. Martin.” He was feeling wondrously well; almost, but for his ever-present sensation of weakness, quite well. His fatigue of the previous day—that of Cecil’s wedding—had left no permanent effects upon him, and had he not known thoroughly his own hopeless state, he might have fancied this afternoon that he was about to get well all one way.
Not in looks. Pale, wan, ghastly were they; the shadow of the grim, implacable visitor that was so soon to come was already on them; but the face in its stillness told of ineffable peace: the brunt of the storm had passed.
The white walls of Lady Godolphin’s Folly glittered brightly in the distance; the dark-blue sky was seen through the branches of the trees, growing bare and more bare against the coming winter; the warm sun rays fell on Thomas Godolphin. Margery came up, and he held out his hand.
“My mistress told me you’d have said good-bye to me yesterday, Mr. Thomas, and it was just my ill-luck to be out. I had gone to take the child’s shoes to be mended—she wears them out fast. But you are not going to leave us yet, sir?”
“I know not how soon it may be, Margery: very long it cannot be. Sit down.”
She stood yet, however, looking at him, disregarding the bench to which he had pointed; stood with a saddened expression and compressed lips. Margery’s was an experienced eye, and it may be that she saw the shadow which had taken up its abode on his face.