“And only think how delightful it will be to have a garden for Mary to play in when she begins to toddle about by herself,” exclaimed Marion.
“And a home to welcome poor Harry to at Christmas,” added Geoffrey.
Truly there were few, if any, happier people that night in the world, than Mrs. Appleby’s two young lodgers!
Late in October that year there came a sort of Indian summer. A week or two of inexpressible beauty, tinged with a certain mellow tenderness, a sort of pensive echo of the summer glories past and gone, peculiar to this lovely “été de Saint Martin,” of which we so seldom see anything in our part of the world.
It was just at this time that the Baldwins, after a week or two spent at Mallingford with Veronica Temple, took up their quarters in their new home. A pretty, cosy nest of a place as it was, it could hardly have been seen to greater advantage than on the day on which Marion first entered it as its mistress.
“You are pleased with it, dear?” asked Geoffrey, and the look with which she answered him said far more than words.
“I have been rather puzzled by something I heard to day,” Geoffrey went on after a moment’s pause. “I was speaking to our clergyman, Mr. Brace, you know, whom I happened to meet in the village. He was congratulating me on our return. ‘Yes,’ he said to me, ‘it is the very thing for you, Baldwin. Sir Ralph Severn could not have given you a better proof of his friendship than by recommending you to his uncle for the post.’ I felt exceedingly amazed at this, Marion, but I said nothing to Mr. Bruce. I thought I would first tell you about it. Is it not strange that Sir Ralph Severn, whom to my knowledge I have seen in my life, whom I hardly know by name, should have recommended me to Lord Brackley? And it must be the case, for Bruce evidently had heard it from Lord Brackley, and I know he is not the sort of man to mention a thing without foundation. Is it not very strange? Surely there can have been no mistake about it!” And poor Geoffrey looked perplexed and distressed.
Marion’s heart beat a little faster, but she felt that the right time had come.
“No, dear Geoffrey,” she said gently, “there is no mistake. I have suspected this before. I guessed who the stranger was that called at Mr. Baxter’s and enquired all about you and your circumstances. I recognized him from what you told me of his personal appearance. It was he that got you Lord Brackley’s offer. Don’t you know now, Geoffrey? Can’t you guess who Sir Ralph Severn is, and why he did this?”
For a moment Geoffrey sat silent, still with the look of bewilderment and anxiety. Then a sudden light broke over his face.