‘Now for the scene!’ said Sir Frederick to himself as he watched him go. Then turning to Mrs Bowood, he said: ‘With your permission, I will go and smoke a cigarette on the terrace.’
‘You will find it very hot on that side of the house.’
‘The heat suits me, madam. If I may be allowed such an expression—I revel in it.’ Then as he walked away, he said to himself: ‘How will she break the news?’
Mrs Bowood had not failed to note in what direction Mr Boyd had vanished. ‘After all, they may perhaps make a match of it,’ was the thought in her mind. ‘I do hope he will propose before Laura goes.’
‘Here you are! I was just wondering what had become of you,’ said Oscar, as he drew up a garden-chair and sat down near Lady Dimsdale.—‘My little sweetheart and asleep?’ he added with a smiling glance at the unconscious Lucy.
‘She was tired with the long walk.’
Something in Lady Dimsdale’s voice struck him. He looked fixedly at her. Probably he expected to see in her some traces of the same change that he felt in himself—the change from despair to gladness, from a midnight of blackest gloom to a dawn of radiant hopes, rich with the sweet promise of happy years to come. But no such traces were visible in the woman who sat before him with pallid, long-drawn face, with downcast eyes, round which the dark circles left by sleeplessness or tears—perhaps by both—were plainly to be seen, and with thin white hands that visibly trembled as, clasped in each other, they lay idly on her lap. It was unaccountable.
‘You have heard of all that happened yesterday?’ he presently remarked. ‘You know that that woman was an impostor?’
‘Yes; I have heard.’
‘Her likeness to her sister was extraordinary. I was completely deceived.’