His letter so cunningly couched filled her with vague alarm and with anxiety. She had heard so many and such afflicting rumours, and had received in my lord’s cruel neglect of her such circumstantial confirmation of them, that she fastened avidly upon what she deemed the chance of learning at last the truth. Sir Richard Verney had my lord’s confidence, and was much about the court in his attendance upon my lord. He would know the truth, and what could this letter mean but that he was disposed to tell it.
So she sent him back a line in answer, bidding him come on Sunday afternoon. She would contrive to be alone in the house, so that he need not fear being seen by any.
As she promised, so she performed, and on the Sunday packed off her household to the fair that was being held at Abingdon that day, using insistence with the reluctant, and particularly with one of her women, a Mrs. Oddingsell, who expressed herself strongly against leaving her ladyship alone in that lonely house. At length, however, the last of them was got off, and my lady was left impatiently to await her secret visitor. It was late afternoon when he arrived, accompanied by Nunweek, whom he left to hold the horses under the chestnuts in the avenue. Himself he reached the house across the garden, where the blighting hand of autumn was already at work.
Within the porch he found her waiting, fretted by her impatience.
“It is very good in you to have come, Sir Richard,” was her gracious greeting.
“I am your ladyship’s devoted servant,” was his sufficient answer, and he doffed his plumed bonnet, and bowed low before her. “We shall be private in your bower above stairs,” he added.
“Why, we are private anywhere. I am all alone, as you desired.”
“That is very wise—most wise,” said he. “Will your ladyship lead the way?”
So they went up that steep, spiral staircase, which had loomed so prominently in the plans the ingenious scoundrel had evolved. Across the gallery on the first floor they entered a little room whose windows overlooked the garden. This was her bower—an intimate cosy room, reflecting on every hand the gentle, industrious personality of the owner. On an oak table near the window were spread some papers and account-books concerned with the estate—with which she had sought to beguile the time of waiting. She led the way towards this, and, sinking into the high-backed chair that stood before it, she looked up at him expectantly. She was pale, there were dark stains under her eyes, and wistful lines had crept into the sweet face of that neglected wife.
Contemplating his poor victim now, Sir Richard may have compared her with the woman by whom my lord desired so impatiently to supplant her. She was tall and beautifully shaped, despite an almost maidenly slenderness. Her countenance was gentle and adorable, with its soft grey eyes and light brown hair, and tender, wistful mouth.