Some hours passed in fond communings. Up to this moment, their relation to each other had, while essentially friendly, not been of a confiding character—it was so now. The time, however, came when they must part, and they did so with mutual expressions of tenderness, but with the understanding that for the present their attachment should be kept as a secret between them, and remain such until a favourable moment presented itself for an avowal.
It was also arranged that no mention should be made by either of their present meeting, but that Hal should return to the inn at which he had put up, and that he should pay his visit to the Manor House as though he had arrived from London on a visit, having taken advantage of the general invitation he had received from her father, to come to his house when he would, with the certainty of always receiving a warm welcome.
They separated. Flora, with a light step, and a strange buoyancy of spirit, hastened towards the house, and, after allowing her, as he believed, time to regain it, Hal left the sequestered glen, for evermore a dear spot in his memory, and struck off by a bye-path through the wood to the inn at which he had stopped on his arrival.
During the morning’s shooting, Lester Vane and Colonel Mires accidentally became separated. The former was an ardent sportsman, and in the excitement of excellent sport, he followed up his game with more celerity and eagerness than the Colonel, whose long residence in India had grafted upon him habits of indolence which he felt little disposition to change.
When the latter found that he was left alone—for he had seated himself beneath the branches of an oak, to rest for a short time—-it abruptly occurred to him that Lester Vane had a motive in being so violently active, and that he purposed distancing him with the object of having somewhere a tête-à-tête with Flora. The fact was that his mind, always dwelling upon her, and being apprehensively jealous of the power of others to win her favour to his disadvantage, he construed circumstances in many instances falsely and absurdly, so as to square with his prevailing impression.
Determined, therefore, not to be jockeyed by Vane, he wended his steps in the direction of the Manor House, taking a somewhat circuitous route, not heeding the occasional, though distant reports of Lester Vane’s gun in the opposite direction, because, eaten up by his jealous suspicions, he regarded the continued discharges as a mere blind, and believed them to be kept up by the gamekeeper, under the instructions of Vane, purposely to deceive him.
Sick, restless with inflamed thoughts, he pursued his course until he found himself emerge into the open park. As he did so, he perceived Flora emerge by a narrow path between two hills, forming a small natural gorge from the glen where she had met Hal.
He watched her proceed to the Manor House, which was in view; he noted the elastic step with which she hastened on, and he felt a painful, burning emotion of wonder as to why her bearing should have, in so brief a period, undergone a change at once evident and to him remarkable.
He had not long to wait in wonder.
Her form was scarcely lost among the shrubs and trees with which the gardens were profusely adorned, when his eyes suddenly lighted upon the form of young Vivian emerging from the same gorge which Flora had so recently left. Hal made unconsciously direct to the spot where the Colonel was standing, but desirous of not being observed by him the latter instantly retreated, and concealed himself in a small brake until the object of his curiosity and wonder passed.