He had known Ethel Thursby for years, and had loved her as long as he had known her.
They had met frequently, sometimes at his own home, for now and then the ladies from Vale View took tea with his mother, and sometimes in general society. When he had first known her she had been still a schoolgirl, and he had told himself that he could afford to wait till she should be of an age to listen to what he had to say to her.
Then had come the break in his prospects consequent on his illness, after which he had had to begin the world afresh. Knowing that he would have to rely solely upon his own exertions—for his father’s living was far from being a lucrative one and there were several fledgelings still under the parental roof—and that some years must necessarily elapse before he would be able to marry, with rare self-abnegation he determined neither by word nor sign to betray his love to the object of it till he should have some assured prospect of being able to ask her to share with him such a home as she was entitled to expect. To that prospect he had at length attained, and he was here to-day with the determination to tell her all that he had carefully hidden in his heart for so long a time. But delays are dangerous in love, as in so many other of the affairs of life, as Everard was presently destined to find to his cost. He was a well set-up resolute-looking young fellow, clear-eyed and clear-skinned, and groomed to perfection; in brief, as far as appearance was concerned, a typical young Briton of the latter half of the nineteenth century.
He was making directly for the house, but the moment he caught sight of Ethel his face flushed, a sudden sparkle leapt to his eyes, and he at once turned and made across the lawn towards her. In one hand he was carrying a bouquet of choice orchids covered up in tissue paper.
Ethel, seeing him thus unexpectedly, supposed, naturally enough, that he had come to spend a brief holiday at home, not troubling herself to remember that only a couple of months had gone by since he had taken up the duties of his new position.
“This is a surprise,” she said smilingly as she gave him her hand. “I quite thought you were a hundred miles away at the least. That’s about the distance, is it not, to—to—I forget its name—the place where you are now living?”
They turned together and strolled slowly along.
“That is about the distance,” he smilingly replied. “Duty ought, perhaps, to have kept me at Withington Chase, but inclination has brought me to St. Oswyth’s. I did not forget that this is your birthday, Miss Ethel; as a proof of which I venture to offer you these few flowers. Will you deign to accept them with the giver’s best wishes for your health and happiness.” As he spoke he stripped the paper off the bouquet and offered it for Ethel’s acceptance.
She took it without a shadow of hesitation, first coming to a stand and placing on the lawn the basket in which she had been gathering her own flowers. “Oh, how lovely—how exquisitely lovely!” she exclaimed with unfeigned admiration. Flowers such as those were a revelation to her. “It was very very kind of you, Mr. Lisle, to remember my birthday in such a charming fashion. My aunts will be as delighted as I am. Of course you will come in and see them now that you are here.”
Even now there was no dawn of suspicion in her heart as to the real purport of his visit. Everard’s courage sank a little, but he had come all the way from the Chase to seek his opportunity, and now that he had found it he was not the man to let it slip through his fingers.