After that the girl told Miss Lenore to run and look for her mamma, and ten minutes after child and mother were sitting hand clasped in hand in a summer-house placed in a retired part of the grounds.
Hour after hour crept by. Lenore had been asleep and was awake again. Dolly's eyes had grown weary of looking at the trees and the grass and the flowers, and her ears were aching by reason of listening for the sound of voices that came not, of footsteps that tarried by the way.
At last a servant hurried to where she sat, saying,
"The master has come back, ma'am." They all knew she was anxious; they were all, perhaps, anxious themselves.
Then, like one weak from long illness, she arose and, walking slowly, retraced her way to the house.
On the lawn Mortomley met her.
"Well, dear?" she asked.
"It is all right, little woman," he answered, with a more cheerful expression than she had seen lighten his face for many a day. "Everything will go on well now."
She did not ask a question; she would not damp his exultation by a word, though she saw Rupert standing in the background with bent brows and lowering visage.
For the time being, her husband was happy. If her own soul misgave her, why should she try to make him unhappy?