Such being the case, he felt himself called upon to probe the mystery and right the wrong, if wrong there were, while his mother remained in optimistic apathy. He kept his counsel and patiently awaited his opportunity.
One perfect spring morning, perhaps a week removed from that dark and perplexing day that had befallen Belvoir, Hubert met Romaine as she emerged from the house accompanied by a splendid mastiff in leash, evidently prepared for a tour of the gardens and the surrounding park. Loyd Morton had gone into the city for the purpose of making further arrangements with his friend Chalmers to attend to his practice indefinitely. For reasons best known to himself, he considered his presence indispensable at Belvoir, and no incentive had been offered him to think otherwise.
The present was the first occasion upon which brother and sister had met, since Romaine's illness, free of the surveillance of Morton. It was surely an opportunity not to be neglected.
"You are going for a walk?" inquired Hubert, engagingly.
"Yes, for our first walk, as in the good old times! Eh, Molossus?" Romaine replied, with a gay smile that embodied much of the vernal buoyancy of the morning, stooping as she spoke to stroke the tawny velvet of the dog's head.
"May I bear you company?"
She hesitated an instant, with that fascinating archness which was hers to employ with telling effect.
"Well," she remarked, "I have no objection to your company if Molossus has not; but you see we have so long been deprived of each other's companionship that—well, we are just a trifle averse to intruders. You see it seems an age since we were free and alone together."
As if to second her words the great animal pressed closely into the folds of her gown, looking up into her face the while with eloquent affection.
"The old traitor!" laughed Hubert; "what would he have done but for my devotion while you were ill? For the time being he transferred all his love to me."