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?"
He seemed not to hear the question. There he sat, with his head hanging down, the shadowy counterfeit of an old man. In her anxiety, Stella approached him, and put her hand caressingly on his head. It was burning hot. "O!" she cried, "you are ill, and you are trying to hide it from me."
He put his arm round her waist and made her sit on his knee. "Nothing is the matter with me," he said, with an uneasy laugh. "What have you got in your hand? A letter?"
"Yes. Addressed to you and not opened yet." He took it out of her hand, and threw it carelessly on a sofa near him. "Never mind that now! Let us talk." He paused, and kissed her, before he went on. "My darling, I think you must be getting tired of Vange?"
"Oh, no! I can be happy anywhere with you--and especially at Vange. You don't how this noble old house interests me, and how I admire the glorious country all round it."
He was not convinced. "Vange is very dull," he said, obstinately; "and your friends will be wanting to see you. Have you heard from your mother lately?"
"No. I am surprised she has not written."
"She has not forgiven us for getting married so quietly," he went on. "We had better go back to London and make our peace with her. Don't you want to see the house my aunt left me at Highgate?"
Stella sighed. The society of the man she loved was society enough for her. Was he getting tired of his wife already? "I will go with you wherever you like." She said those words in tones of sad submission, and gently got up from his knee.
He rose also, and took from the sofa the letter which he had thrown on it. "Let us see what our friends say," he resumed. "The address is in Loring's handwriting."
As he approached the table on which the lamp was burning, she noticed that he moved with a languor that was new in her experience of him. He sat down and opened the letter. She watched him with an anxiety which had now become intensified to suspicion. The shade of the lamp still prevented her from seeing his face plainly. "Just what I told you," he said; "the Lorings want to know when they are to see us in London; and your mother says she 'feels like that character in Shakespeare who was cut by his own daughters.' Read it."
He handed her the letter. In taking it, she contrived to touch the lamp shade, as if by accident, and tilted it so that the full flow of the light fell on him. He started back--but not before she had seen the ghastly pallor on his face. She had not only heard it from Lady Loring, she knew from his own unreserved confession to her what that startling change really meant. In an instant she was on her knees at his feet. "Oh, my darling," she cried, "it was cruel to keep that secret from your wife! You have heard it again!"
She was too irresistibly beautiful, at that moment, to be reproved. He gently raised her from the floor--and owned the truth.
"Yes," he said; "I heard it after you left me on the Belvidere--just as I heard it on another moonlight night, when Major Hynd was here with me. Our return to this house is perhaps the cause. I don't complain; I have had a long release."
She threw her arms round his neck. "We will leave Vange to-morrow," she said.
It was firmly spoken. But her heart sank as the words passed her lips. Vange Abbey had been the scene of the most unalloyed happiness in her life. What destiny was waiting for her when she returned to London?
CHAPTER II.
EVENTS AT TEN ACRES.
THERE was no obstacle to the speedy departure of Romayne and his wife from Vange Abbey. The villa at Highgate--called Ten Acres Lodge, in allusion to the measurement of the grounds surrounding the house--had been kept in perfect order by the servants of the late Lady Berrick, now in the employment of her nephew.
On the morning after their arrival at the villa, Stella sent a note to her mother. The same afternoon, Mrs. Eyrecourt arrived at Ten Acres--on her way to a garden-party. Finding the house, to her great relief, a modern building, supplied with all the newest comforts and luxuries, she at once began to plan a grand party, in celebration of the return of the bride and bridegroom.
"I don't wish to praise myself," Mrs. Eyrecourt said; "but if ever there was a forgiving woman, I am that person. We will say no more, Stella, about your truly contemptible wedding--five people altogether, including ourselves and the Lorings. A grand ball will set you right with society, and that is the one thing needful. Tea and coffee, my dear Romayne, in your study; Coote's quadrille band; the supper from Gunter's, the grounds illuminated with colored lamps; Tyrolese singers among the trees, relieved by military music--and, if there are any African or other savages now in London, there is room enough in these charming grounds for encampments, dances, squaws, scalps, and all the rest of it, to end in a blaze of fireworks."
A sudden fit of coughing seized her, and stopped the further enumeration of attractions at the contemplated ball. Stella had observed that her mother looked unusually worn and haggard, through the disguises of paint and powder. This was not an uncommon result of Mrs. Eyrecourt's devotion to the demands of society; but the cough was something new, as a symptom of exhaustion.
"I am afraid, mamma, you have been overexerting yourself," said Stella. "You go to too many parties."
"Nothing of the sort, my dear; I am as strong as a horse. The other night, I was waiting for the carriage in a draught (one of the most perfect private concerts of the season, ending with a delightfully naughty little French play)--and I caught a slight cold. A glass of water is all I want. Thank you. Romayne, you are looking shockingly serious and severe; our ball will cheer you. If you would only make a bonfire of all those horrid books, you don't know how it would improve your spirits. Dearest Stella, I will come and lunch here to-morrow--you are within such a nice easy drive from town--and I'll bring my visiting-book, and settle about the invitations and the day. Oh, dear me, how late it is. I have nearly an hour's drive before I get to my garden party. Good-by, my turtle doves good-by."
She was stopped, on the way to her carriage, by another fit of coughing. But she still persisted in making light of it. "I'm as strong as a horse," she repeated, as soon as she could speak--and skipped into the carriage like a young girl.
"Your mother is killing herself," said Romayne.
"If I could persuade her to stay with us a little while," Stella suggested, "the rest and quiet might do wonders for her.