‘I must see it—and ruminate on what we once were: it is a thing I like doing. The ghosts of our dead—Ah, what was that?’
‘I heard nothing.’
‘I thought I heard a footstep behind us.’
They stood still; but the road appeared to be quite deserted, and likely to continue so for the remainder of that evening. They walked on again, speaking in somewhat lower tones than before.
‘Will the late Sir William’s death delay the wedding much?’ asked the younger man curiously.
De Stancy languidly answered that he did not see why it should do so. Some little time would of course intervene, but, since there were several reasons for despatch, he should urge Miss Power and her relatives to consent to a virtually private wedding which might take place at a very early date; and he thought there would be a general consent on that point.
‘There are indeed reasons for despatch. Your title, Sir William, is a new safeguard over her heart, certainly; but there is many a slip, and you must not lose her now.’
‘I don’t mean to lose her!’ said De Stancy. ‘She is too good to be lost. And yet—since she gave her promise I have felt more than once that I would not engage in such a struggle again. It was not a thing of my beginning, though I was easily enough inflamed to follow. But I will not lose her now.—For God’s sake, keep that secret you have so foolishly pricked on your breast. It fills me with remorse to think what she with her scrupulous notions will feel, should she ever know of you and your history, and your relation to me!’
Dare made no reply till after a silence, when he said, ‘Of course mum’s the word till the wedding is over.’
‘And afterwards—promise that for her sake?’