It was a beautiful autumn day, brightened by clear sunshine, enlivened by crisp air. Stella put on her hat and went out for a stroll in the grounds.
While she was within view from the windows of the servants’ offices she walked away from the house. Turning the corner of a shrubbery, she entered a winding path, on the other side, which led back to the lawn under Romayne’s study window. Garden chairs were placed here and there. She took one of them, and seated herself—after a last moment of honorable hesitation—where she could hear the men’s voices through the open window above her.
Penrose was speaking at the time.
“Yes. Father Benwell has granted me a holiday,” he said; “but I don’t come here to be an idle man. You must allow me to employ my term of leave in the pleasantest of all ways. I mean to be your secretary again.”
Romayne sighed. “Ah, if you knew how I have missed you!”
(Stella waited, in breathless expectation, for what Penrose would say to this. Would he speak of her? No. There was a natural tact and delicacy in him which waited for the husband to introduce the subject.)
Penrose only said, “How is the great work getting on?”
The answer was sternly spoken in one word—“Badly!”
“I am surprised to hear that, Romayne.”
“Why? Were you as innocently hopeful as I was? Did you expect my experience of married life to help me in writing my book?”