“Am I going to ride home?” inquired Franceline, surprised.
“Certainly not! Nor drive either. You don’t suppose I’m going to let you off with one day’s penance?”
“O dear Lady Anwyll! papa will expect me to-morrow, and he will be uneasy if he does not see me; I assure you he will,” pleaded Franceline.
“I can remove that obstacle,” said Lord Roxham promptly. “I must ride over to Dullerton early to-morrow morning, and I can have the honor of calling at M. de la Bourbonais’, and setting his mind at rest about you.”
“The very thing!” cried Lady Anwyll, shutting up Franceline, who had an excuse ready; “you can call at The Lilies on your way back, and tell the count he is to expect this young lady when he sees her.”
Luckily Franceline was ignorant of the juxtaposition of the various seats round Dullerton, or it might have struck her as odd that Lady Anwyll should propose the messenger’s going a round of fifteen miles to call at The Lilies “on his way back.” But she suspected nothing, and when Lord Roxham alighted at Rydal next day punctually as the clock struck two P.M. she greeted him with unabashed cordiality, and was all eagerness to know if he had seen her father, and what the latter had said.
She had slept restlessly, but she had slept; her anxiety had not as yet the sting in it that destroys sleep. She did not fail to notice with renewed wonder that Lord Roxham had studiously avoided mentioning Mr. de Winton’s name. Studiously it must have been; for what more natural than to have mentioned him when discussing the fairy festa where they had first met? She felt certain there must be a motive for so palpable a reticence, and the thought did not tend to reassure her. She had dressed herself before luncheon, so when the horses came round, they mounted at once. Franceline, on starting, had mentally resolved to make Lord Roxham speak on the subject that was uppermost in her mind—to put a direct question in fact, if everything else failed—but, strive as she might, he would not be lured into the trap, and her courage sank so much on seeing this that she dared not venture on a direct interrogation.
They stayed out until near sundown; the day was breezy and bright, and Franceline looked radiant with the excitement and exercise.
“Let us ride up to the knoll and see the sun go down behind the common,” proposed Capt. Anwyll, as they were about to pass the park gate; “the sunset is the only thing we have worth showing at Rydal, and I’d like Mlle. de la Bourbonais to see it.”
His companions gladly assented, and the party turned off the road into a bridle-path across the fields which led to the elevation commanding an unbroken view of the spectacle. It seemed as if everything had been purposely cleared away from the landscape that could divert attention for an instant from the glorious pageant of the western skies. Not a house was visible, and scarcely a habitation; the cottages were hid in the flanks of the valley, and only reminded you of their existence by a thin vapor that curled up from a solitary chimney and quickly lost itself in the trees. Nothing gave any sign of life but the sheep browsing on the gilded emerald of the shorn meadows. The red and gold waves flooded the vast expanse of the horizon, flowing further and higher as the spectators gazed, until half heaven was on fire with a conflagration of rainbows. Swiftly the colors changed, crimson and orange first, then deep and tender shades of purple and green, until all melted into uniform violet, the herald of the gathering darkness. They stood watching it in silence, Franceline with bated breath. The sunset always had a solemn charm for her, and she had never seen so vast and gorgeous a one as this. It was like watching the dying throes of a divinity.