FullReads

He seated himself on a mossy stone below her with this reflection, and began to cast pebbles into the brown water.

Priscilla watched him gravely. What he had told her interested her considerably, but she had no intention of giving herself away by betraying it.

There was a decided pause before she made up her mind how to pursue the subject.

“I had no idea that an American could be shy,” she said then.

Carfax turned with his pleasant smile.

“No? We’re a pushing race, I suppose. But I think Cochrane had some excuse for his timidity this time.”

“Yes?” said Priscilla.

He began to laugh quietly.

“You see, it turned out that he was expected to marry the old maid of the family–Lady Priscilla. Naturally he kicked at that.”

Priscilla bent sharply over Romeo, and began to examine one of his huge paws. Her face was a vivid scarlet.

“It wasn’t surprising, was it?” said Carfax, tossing another pebble into the stream. “It was more than enough, in my opinion, to make any fellow feel shy.”

Priscilla did not answer. The colour was slow to fade from her face.

“I wonder if you have ever seen the lady?” Carfax pursued. “She was out of town when I was there.”

“Yes; I have seen her.”

Priscilla spoke with her head bent.

“You have? What is she like?”

He glanced round with an expression of amused interest. Priscilla looked up deliberately.

“She is quite old and ugly. But I don’t think Mr. Ralph Cochrane need be afraid. She doesn’t like men. I am rather sorry for her myself.”

“Sorry for her? Why?”

Carfax became serious.

“I think she is rather lonely,” the girl said, in a low voice.

“You know her well?”

“Can any one say that they really know any one? No. But I think that she feels very deeply, and that her life has always been more or less of a failure. At least, that is the sort of feeling I have about her.”

Again, but more gradually, the colour rose in her face. She took up her basket, and began to unpack it.

Carfax turned fully round.

“You go in for character-study,” he said.

“A little,” she owned. “I can’t help it. Now let me give you some tea. I have enough for two.”

“I shall be delighted,” he said courteously. “Let me help you to unpack.”

Priscilla could never recall afterwards how they spent the golden hours till six o’clock. She was as one in a dream, to which she clung closely, passionately, fearing to awake. For in her dream she was standing on the threshold of her paradise, waiting for the opening of the gates.

IV

ON THE THRESHOLD

Raffold Abbey was huge and rambling, girt with many memories. They spent nearly two hours wandering through the house and the old, crumbling chapel.

“There is a crypt below,” Priscilla said, “but we can’t go down without a lantern. Another day, if you cared—-“

“Of course I should, above all things,” declared Carfax. “I was just going to ask when I might come again.”

Their intimacy had progressed wonderfully during those hours of companionship. The total absence of conventionality had destroyed all strangeness between them. They were as children on a holiday, enjoying the present to the full, and wholly careless of the future.

Not till Carfax had at length taken his leave did Priscilla ask herself what had brought him there. Merely to view his friend’s inheritance seemed a paltry reason. Perhaps he was a journalist, or a writer of guide-books. But she soon dismissed the matter, to ask herself a more personal question. Was it possible that he knew her? Had he found out her name after the New York episode, and come at last to seek her? She could not honestly believe this, though her heart leapt at the thought. That affair had taken place four long years before. Of course, he had forgotten it. It could have made no more than a passing impression upon him. Had it been otherwise, would he not have claimed her at once as an old acquaintance?