‘There’s nothing in it,’ said Tabitha scornfully. ‘I could prove it any day.’
‘Well, I wish I had half her chance!’ sighed the lady’s maid. And no more was said on the subject then.
Tabitha’s remark showed that the suspicion was quite in embryo as yet. Nevertheless, saying nothing to reveal what she had overheard, immediately after the reading Lady Constantine flew like a bird to where she knew that Swithin might be found.
He was in the plantation, setting up little sticks to mark where the wooden cabin was to stand. She called him to a remote place under the funereal trees.
‘I have altered my mind,’ she said. ‘I can have nothing to do with this matter.’
‘Indeed?’ said Swithin, surprised.
‘Astronomy is not my hobby any longer. And you are not my Astronomer Royal.’
‘O Lady Constantine!’ cried the youth, aghast. ‘Why, the work is begun! I thought the equatorial was ordered.’
She dropped her voice, though a Jericho shout would not have been overheard: ‘Of course astronomy is my hobby privately, and you are to be my Astronomer Royal, and I still furnish the observatory; but not to the outer world. There is a reason against my indulgence in such scientific fancies openly; and the project must be arranged in this wise. The whole enterprise is yours: you rent the tower of me: you build the cabin: you get the equatorial. I simply give permission, since you desire it. The path that was to be made from the hill to the park is not to be thought of. There is to be no communication between the house and the column. The equatorial will arrive addressed to you, and its cost I will pay through you. My name must not appear, and I vanish entirely from the undertaking. . . . This blind is necessary,’ she added, sighing. ‘Good-bye!’
‘But you do take as much interest as before, and it will be yours just the same?’ he said, walking after her. He scarcely comprehended the subterfuge, and was absolutely blind as to its reason.