She had a morbid horror of appearing affected or exaggerated; and an instinctive determination to keep her feelings to herself. Naturally, she made the mistake of overdoing her part.
She dressed quickly, went downstairs and sat through the long, weary dinner; to all appearance the calmest and least uneasy of the party. One after another of the grooms and gardeners, despatched with lanterns in various directions to seek the truant, returned after a fruitless search.
The Squire grew more and more fidgety. Lady Anne was all but in tears—Margaret and Georgie unable to eat any dinner. Marion seemed to herself to be standing on the edge of a fearful precipice, down which she dared not look; but she said nothing, and no stranger entering the company would have imagined that she, of all the party, was the one most chiefly concerned in the fate of Geoffrey Baldwin.
Dinner over, the ladies mechanically adjourned as usual to the drawing-room. Lady Anne and Margaret sat together by the fire, talking in a low voice. Marion stayed near them for a moment, but Lady Anne’s sort of sick-room tone and half-pitying glances in her direction, irritated her. So she got a book, and seated herself by a little reading-table in the further corner of the room. Georgie ran in and out: every five minutes braving the cold and fog at the hall-door to peep out to see, or hear rather, “if any one was coming,” like sister Anne in the grim old story.
For more than half-an-hour they sat thus in almost unbroken silence. The Squire and Captain Ferndale, with the usual manly horror of an impending “scene,” lingered longer than usual in the dining-room.
Suddenly Georgie darting back from one of her voyages of discovery to the hall-door, flew into the drawing-room exclaiming excitedly.
“Mamma, Maggie, I hear a horse!”
In an instant they all jumped up, and followed her into the hall. The door was wide open, the horse’s feet were heard plainly, steadily approaching, nearer and nearer.
Marion remained in the drawing-room, only creeping close to the doorway, whence she could both hear and see all that took place.
“I do hope it is all right,” said Lady Anne, earnestly. “Girls, Fred,” (for by this time the gentlemen had joined them,) “do you think it is he?”