We went in to dinner.
I talked to her incessantly, and inasmuch as her happiness lay in being with me, she was prepared to be charmed out of her misery for however brief a period.
I was myself somewhat astonished at the hold I had secured over her so soon. I suppose in her inmost heart she was dreaming dreams in which all would come right. But even if I were safely ensconced as Earl Gascoyne I could not have made such a sacrifice as to marry her. Besides, in the sense of a mate, to take my name and reign with me, I would not have changed Edith Gascoyne for anyone in the world, not even for Sibella.
There is among modern English ballads one which has always struck me as having a claim to live because of its simplicity and the heart-throb in it. It is called ‘For ever and for ever.’ It possesses a perfect blending of music and idea, unpretentious, but full of feeling.
As before, we spent the evening at the piano, and I sang this song to her almost under my breath:
“I would, alas! it were not so
For ever and for ever.”
I could see that the tears were raining down her cheeks as she listened. She held a fan so as to conceal her face from the others in the room.
“We shall see each other again soon,” I murmured, as I said good-night.
Lord Gascoyne and I were the last to leave the smoking-room, and he parted from me at the foot of the stairs that led to the bachelors’ quarters. My bedroom was half-way down a long corridor, at the end of which there was a solid door, which gave on to the battlements. It was bolted inside, but not locked, and I had more than once used it to take an evening stroll when the inhabitants of Hammerton Castle were asleep. This evening I opened the door noiselessly and walked out on to the walls. It was a clear starlight night and bitterly cold. I did not mind this, for I had on a thick fur coat. I strolled along, thinking deeply, when suddenly I was brought to a standstill by a ray of light that fell right across my path.
I looked in the direction from whence it came, and was astonished to see Esther Lane leaning out of a window a few feet from me. The terrace at this point took an abrupt turn, and a comparatively new part of the castle had been built out at a tangent.