into any explanation, but the intelligence was apparently rather exciting than painful, for he had gone away in very good spirits. The travellers looked at each other in perplexity. What were they to do? To come and install themselves at the villa was impossible, not so much on account of the host’s absence as because of Franceline’s presence. Raymond was discussing the same difficulty in his own mind, and was sorely puzzled as to what he was expected to do. Lord Roxham came to his assistance:
“The fact is, we have been too precipitate; we ought to have waited for another letter from Harness. However, it really does not much matter as far as the journey is concerned. I was on my way to these parts, and Anwyll is very lucky in getting a month’s leave and the chance of exploring this pretty place with a cicerone like myself. We shall have no difficulty, I dare say, in getting some tolerably comfortable quarters at a hotel in the town. You, count, will perhaps kindly put us in the way of that. What is the best hotel here?”
Giacomo, the odd man and general out-door factotum, runner-of-errands, and finder-out-of-everything, was called and despatched to the hotel with the gentlemen’s luggage and proper instructions about their requirements. This essential point once settled, all restraint was at an end. M. de la Bourbonais felt free to allow his courtesy full play and to offer all the hospitality that he wished to the two Englishmen. He insisted on their remaining to dinner; they had just half an hour to refresh themselves before it would be ready. Franceline joined her father so graciously in urging the request that they yielded a not unwilling assent.
Raymond had never met with Lord Roxham or Ponsonby since that memorable dinner at the Court, but he had received letters from both immediately on Sir Simon’s return and discovery of the ring. These letters were written in a frank, manly tone that it would have been difficult to resist if Raymond had been far more deeply incensed against the writers than he was. Both assured him of their unshaken esteem and their conviction all along that the mistake—for mistake they felt certain it was—would sooner or later be cleared up; if they had given any pain by not sooner expressing this opinion to M. de la Bourbonais himself, they sincerely regretted and apologized for it. Raymond had replied graciously to both, and so the old kind feeling was restored. He retained a grateful recollection, too, of Ponsonby’s prompt though formal salutation when Mr. Charlton had passed on, cutting him dead.
The evening passed pleasantly as the party sat chatting away on the terrace, with the young May moon shining down on the blue waves that beat against the pebbly beach with a murmurous plash. Franceline had all sorts of questions to ask about Dullerton after nearly three months’ absence—a long time at her age. She seemed astonished that there was nothing remarkable to tell about the place and the people during that interval, and I am afraid that Sir Ponsonby Anwyll drew on his imagination now and then, rather than acknowledge the humiliating fact that he knew nothing concerning the thing he was catechised about. He talked of probable plans and contemplated movements of the various persons, as if plans and movements entered into the
lives of the homespun natives of Dullerton at all.
It was late when the two young men took leave, with the promise to return early next morning for a drive by the sea. Sir Simon had contrived a wonderful nondescript vehicle, a cross between a char-à-banc and a wagonette, with an awning supported by iron rods, so as to obviate the necessity for umbrellas or parasols. Franceline was to do the honors of this and show them the beauties of the coast.
They were punctual to their appointment, and everybody enjoyed the drive exceedingly. They dined at the Villa des Olives again that day, and there was more sitting out on the terrace and endless conversations.
* * * * *
Clide, meantime, was waking up as from a bad dream. As soon as the cloud of those few hurried days was dispelled, he seemed suddenly to cast off the chill of awe that had fallen on him by his wife’s dying-bed, and clung to him until the grave had closed on her and shut out that chapter of his life for ever. Then youth vindicated itself, the elastic spring rebounded, and the future that yesterday was out of sight began to dawn brightly on him once more. The yearning to see Franceline, to claim her for his own, asserted itself with a force that was only the greater for being so long repressed. But now that all obstacles were removed on his side, it remained to be seen whether she was still free—free at heart, and willing to be his; it was possible—nay, did not his better sense add probable—that the seed of love he had sown in her heart had perished there before this, chilled by his neglect, crushed to death by his seeming faithlessness and desertion.