Presently, acting upon some impulse, she opened a drawer in one of the tables. It contained a portrait in crayons of Peter Basset, which John Audley had shown her. She took out the sketch and set it against a book where the light fell upon it, and she examined it. At first with a smile—that he should have been so mad as to think what he had thought! And then with a softer look. How hard she had been to him! How unfeeling! Nay, how cruel!
She sat for a long time looking at the portrait. But in fact she had forgotten that it was before her, when the clock, striking the half—hour before noon, surprised her. Then she thrust the portrait back into its drawer, and went with a composed face to put on her hat.
The past summer had been one of the wettest ever known, for rain had fallen on five days out of seven. But to-day it was fine, and as Mary descended the road that led from the house towards Riddsley, a road open to the vale on one side and flanked on the other by a rising slope covered with brushwood, a watery sun was shining. Its rays, aided by the clearness of the air, brought out the colors of stubble and field, flood and coppice, that lay below. And men looking up from toil or pleasure, leaning on spades or pausing before they crossed a stile, saw the Gatehouse transformed to a fairy lodge, gray, clear—cut, glittering, breaking the line of forest trees—saw it as if it had stood in another world.
Mary looked back, looked forward, admired, descended. She had made up her mind that Lord Audley would meet her at a turn near the foot of the hill, where a Cross had once stood, and where the crumbling base and moss-clothed steps still bade travellers rest and be thankful.
He was there, and Mary owned the attraction of the big smiling face and the burly figure, that in a rough, caped riding-coat still kept an air of fashion. He on his side saw coming to meet him, through the pale sunshine, not as yesterday an Atalanta, but a cool Dian, with her hands in a large muff.
“You bring a good report, I hope?” he cried before they met.
“Very good,” Mary replied, sparkling a little as she looked at him—was not the sun shining? “My uncle is much better this morning. Dr. Pepper says that it was mainly exertion acting on a weak heart. He expects him to be downstairs in a week and to be himself in a fortnight. But he will have to be more careful in future.”
“That is good!”
“He says, too, that if you had not acted so promptly, my uncle must have died.”
“Well, he was pretty far gone, I must say.”