MORE than six weeks had passed. The wedded lovers were still enjoying their honeymoon at Vange Abbey.
Some offense had been given, not only to Mrs. Eyrecourt, but to friends of her way of thinking, by the strictly private manner in which the marriage had been celebrated. The event took everybody by surprise when the customary advertisement appeared in the newspapers. Foreseeing the unfavorable impression that might be produced in some quarters, Stella had pleaded for a timely retreat to the seclusion of Romayne’s country house. The will of the bride being, as usual, the bridegroom’s law, to Vange they retired accordingly.
On one lovely moonlight night, early in July, Mrs. Romayne left her husband on the Belvidere, described in Major Hynd’s narrative, to give the housekeeper certain instructions relating to the affairs of the household. Half an hour later, as she was about to ascend again to the top of the house, one of the servants informed her that “the master had just left the Belvidere, and had gone into his study.”
Crossing the inner hall, on her way to the study, Stella noticed an unopened letter, addressed to Romayne, lying on a table in a corner. He had probably laid it aside and forgotten it. She entered his room with the letter in her hand.
The only light was a reading lamp, with the shade so lowered that the corners of the study were left in obscurity. In one of these corners Romayne was dimly visible, sitting with his head sunk on his breast. He never moved when Stella opened the door. At first she thought he might be asleep.
“Do I disturb you, Lewis?” she asked softly.
“No, my dear.”
There was a change in the tone of his voice, which his wife’s quick ear detected. “I am afraid you are not well,” she said anxiously.
“I am a little tired after our long ride to-day. Do you want to go back to the Belvidere?”
“Not without you. Shall I leave you to rest here?”