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The clock struck five as they finished dinner.

“Put on your hat, George,” said Robert Audley; “they don’t dine at the Court till seven; we shall have time to stroll down and see the old place and its inhabitants.”

The landlord, who had come into the room with a bottle of wine, looked up as the young man spoke.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Audley,” he said, “but if you want to see your uncle, you’ll lose your time by going to the Court just now. Sir Michael and my lady and Miss Alicia have all gone to the races up at Chorley, and they won’t be back till nigh upon eight o’clock, most likely. They must pass by here to go home.”

Under these circumstances of course it was no use going to the Court, so the two young men strolled through the village and looked at the old church, and then went and reconnoitered the streams in which they were to fish the next day, and by such means beguiled the time until after seven o’clock. At about a quarter past that hour they returned to the inn, and seating themselves in the open window, lit their cigars and looked out at the peaceful prospect.

We hear every day of murders committed in the country. Brutal and treacherous murders; slow, protracted agonies from poisons administered by some kindred hand; sudden and violent deaths by cruel blows, inflicted with a stake cut from some spreading oak, whose every shadow promised—peace. In the county of which I write, I have been shown a meadow in which, on a quiet summer Sunday evening, a young farmer murdered the girl who had loved and trusted him; and yet, even now, with the stain of that foul deed upon it, the aspect of the spot is—peace. No species of crime has ever been committed in the worst rookeries about Seven Dials that has not been also done in the face of that rustic calm which still, in spite of all, we look on with a tender, half-mournful yearning, and associate with—peace.

It was dusk when gigs and chaises, dog-carts and clumsy farmers’ phaetons, began to rattle through the village street, and under the windows of the Sun Inn; deeper dusk still when an open carriage and four drew suddenly up beneath the rocking sign-post.

It was Sir Michael Audley’s barouche which came to so sudden a stop before the little inn. The harness of one of the leaders had become out of order, and the foremost postillion dismounted to set it right.

“Why, it’s my uncle,” cried Robert Audley, as the carriage stopped. “I’ll run down and speak to him.”

George lit another cigar, and, sheltered by the window-curtains, looked out at the little party. Alicia sat with her back to the horses, and he could perceive, even in the dusk, that she was a handsome brunette; but Lady Audley was seated on the side of the carriage furthest from the inn, and he could see nothing of the fair-haired paragon of whom he had heard so much.

“Why, Robert,” exclaimed Sir Michael, as his nephew emerged from the inn, “this is a surprise!”

“I have not come to intrude upon you at the Court, my dear uncle,” said the young man, as the baronet shook him by the hand in his own hearty fashion. “Essex is my native county, you know, and about this time of year I generally have a touch of homesickness; so George and I have come down to the inn for two or three day’s fishing.”

“George—George who?”

“George Talboys.”

“What, has he come?” cried Alicia. “I’m so glad; for I’m dying to see this handsome young widower.”

“Are you, Alicia?” said her cousin, “Then egad, I’ll run and fetch him, and introduce you to him at once.”

Now, so complete was the dominion which Lady Audley had, in her own childish, unthinking way, obtained over her devoted husband, that it was very rarely that the baronet’s eyes were long removed from his wife’s pretty face. When Robert, therefore, was about to re-enter the inn, it needed but the faintest elevation of Lucy’s eyebrows, with a charming expression of weariness and terror, to make her husband aware that she did not want to be bored by an introduction to Mr. George Talboys.