“I think I told you,” she said in answer to the look, “that it was originally my intention, after leaving the Shrublands, to have gone direct to France, there to stay till well on for Christmas with a very old friend of mine, indeed, the only one of my school companions whose friendship I have retained till now. On the eve of starting I received a letter from Julie in which she asked me, in consequence of her grandson’s illness, to put off my visit till I should hear from her again. It was merely a feverish cold, she wrote, and not the slightest danger was apprehended. But this black-bordered missive, even before I open it, tells me but too surely what has happened.”
She said no more, but opened the letter. Tears were in her eyes when she laid it down a couple of minutes later. For awhile the meal progressed in silence.
Sir Gilbert was the first to speak. “Am I right, Louisa, in supposing that, owing to your friend’s loss, your visit to France will have to be postponed indefinitely?” he asked.
“Postponed till spring undoubtedly. Madame de Bellecour presses me to go after a week or two, but at such a time I should feel myself little better than an intruder.”
“In that case there can be no valid reason why you should not prolong your visit at the Chase, and give to us the time you originally intended to devote to your friend in France.”
Lady Pell in the act of helping herself to sugar considered for a few moments. Then she said: “Thank you for your offer, Cousin Gilbert. I will think it over and let you know my decision later on.”
After breakfast Lady Pell went to her room to write some letters. At such times, as Ethel was aware, she preferred to be alone. So, it being one of those lovely autumn mornings which are among the choicest of the year, Ethel put on her hat and quitted the house with the intention of exploring the grounds, and making herself better acquainted with the Chase and its surroundings.
What the uppermost subject in her thoughts was as she went sauntering along, careless whether she took this path or the other, she was never afterwards able to remember. All she knew was that she was softly crooning a lately-learnt ballad which had taken her fancy, and that she felt quietly and sunnily happy, when all at once, without an instant’s warning, and unknown to herself; she touched the turning-point of her destiny.
Ethel, who had stopped in her walk, in order to inhale the fragrance of some late-blooming roses, hearing the sound of approaching footsteps on the gravel, turned her head to see who was coming, and a moment later, round a clump of evergreens, appeared the unforgotten face and figure of Everard Lisle, who was on his way to his daily duties at the Chase.
The two were within a dozen yards of each other, and the moment Lisle’s eyes fell on Ethel, he came to an abrupt halt, paralysed as it were by sheer amazement. Ethel’s heart seemed to stop beating for an instant or two, and then went on with a bound, while a lovely flush suffused her face and throat, and seemed to tingle down to her very fingertips. Everard, on the contrary, had turned almost as pale as a corpse. Ordinarily one of the most self-possessed of men, he had now to draw three or four laboured breaths before a word would come.