"She looks far from well," replied Malcolm; "I fear this has been a great shock to her, and to you too;" and then he shook hands and went out into the darkness. When he was half-way down the drive he turned round—the door was still open, and the cheerful light streamed out into the blackness. Elizabeth was standing on the threshold looking after him. When she saw him stop she waved her hand with a friendly 'good-night;' then the door closed, and there was only the October darkness, and an eerie, wandering wind moaning through the woodlands.
CHAPTER XXX
IN KENSINGTON GARDENS
If you would fall into any extreme, let it be on the side of gentleness. The human mind is so constructed that it resists vigour and yields to softness.
—ST. FRANCIS DE SALES.
Malcolm went up by an early train the next morning. He had a long day's work before him—a mass of correspondence to sift, several business interviews, and some proofs to revise. It was later than usual when he went back to Cheyne Walk, but Verity had put aside his dinner for him, and sat beside him while he ate it. She even brought him coffee with her own hands. Perhaps these little womanly attentions soothed him insensibly—though he was so used to them by this time that he was almost tempted to take them as a matter of course—for his face lost its strained, weary look.
"There is a beautiful fire in your room, Mr. Herrick," she observed cheerfully before she left him. "I shall tell Amias that you are tired, and that he must not expect you in the studio to-night."
Malcolm smiled gratefully. "What a good little soul you are, Verity—you always say just the right thing! Tell Goliath, with my love, that I am busy, so there must be no pipe and no palaver to-night. I shall have to be up betimes too;" and then he took counsel with Verity as to the hour when his breakfast should be served.
It was quite true that he had business waiting to be done; nevertheless, as he lay back in his easy-chair by the fire, he could not bring himself to take up his pen. At this very hour on the previous evening he had been with Elizabeth; the dear face—dearer, alas! than ever—had been before him; the changing, characteristic voice, so musical yet so uneven, had been in his ears! He recalled her look as she stood so wrapt in thought in the alcove before she perceived his presence. Its deep sadness had surprised him. What could be troubling her? In a few months she would marry the man she loved. Truly God's best gifts were hers—health, wealth, and love—and yet the shadowed brow and the eyes misty with unshed tears seemed to speak of some hidden sorrow. What could it be? That was his last waking thought that night, and the question still troubled him when he walked the next morning in the direction of Kensington Gardens to keep his self-made tryst with Leah Jacobi.
He knew the gate that was nearest to Gresham Gardens; but it was long before the hour that Hugh Rossiter had mentioned when he reached it, and began pacing up and down like a sentinel on duty.