“I am afraid that my time is almost too short to allow even of such a pleasure,” he said. “I leave here to-morrow. And until I start for the Continent and India, which will be in a fortnight, I shall have hardly a moment to spare.”
Knight’s disappointment and dissatisfied looks at this reply sent a pang through Stephen as great as any he had felt at the sight of Elfride. The words about shortness of time were literally true, but their tone was far from being so. He would have been gratified to talk with Knight as in past times, and saw as a dead loss to himself that, to save the woman who cared nothing for him, he was deliberately throwing away his friend.
“Oh, I am sorry to hear that,” said Knight, in a changed tone. “But of course, if you have weighty concerns to attend to, they must not be neglected. And if this is to be our first and last meeting, let me say that I wish you success with all my heart!” Knight’s warmth revived towards the end; the solemn impressions he was beginning to receive from the scene around them abstracting from his heart as a puerility any momentary vexation at words. “It is a strange place for us to meet in,” he continued, looking round the vault.
Stephen briefly assented, and there was a silence. The blackened coffins were now revealed more clearly than at first, the whitened walls and arches throwing them forward in strong relief. It was a scene which was remembered by all three as an indelible mark in their history. Knight, with an abstracted face, was standing between his companions, though a little in advance of them, Elfride being on his right hand, and Stephen Smith on his left. The white daylight on his right side gleamed faintly in, and was toned to a blueness by contrast with the yellow rays from the candle against the wall. Elfride, timidly shrinking back, and nearest the entrance, received most of the light therefrom, whilst Stephen was entirely in candlelight, and to him the spot of outer sky visible above the steps was as a steely blue patch, and nothing more.
“I have been here two or three times since it was opened,” said Stephen. “My father was engaged in the work, you know.”
“Yes. What are you doing?” Knight inquired, looking at the note-book and pencil Stephen held in his hand.
“I have been sketching a few details in the church, and since then I have been copying the names from some of the coffins here. Before I left England I used to do a good deal of this sort of thing.”
“Yes; of course. Ah, that’s poor Lady Luxellian, I suppose.” Knight pointed to a coffin of light satin-wood, which stood on the stone sleepers in the new niche. “And the remainder of the family are on this side. Who are those two, so snug and close together?”
Stephen’s voice altered slightly as he replied “That’s Lady Elfride Kingsmore—born Luxellian, and that is Arthur, her husband. I have heard my father say that they—he—ran away with her, and married her against the wish of her parents.”
“Then I imagine this to be where you got your Christian name, Miss Swancourt?” said Knight, turning to her. “I think you told me it was three or four generations ago that your family branched off from the Luxellians?”