‘You see, it was in this way – he came originally from the same place as I, and taught me things; but I am not intimate with him. Shan’t I be glad when I get richer and better known, and hob and nob with him!’ Stephen’s eyes sparkled.
A pout began to shape itself upon Elfride’s soft lips. ‘You think always of him, and like him better than you do me!’
‘No, indeed, Elfride. The feeling is different quite. But I do like him, and he deserves even more affection from me than I give.’
‘You are not nice now, and you make me as jealous as possible!’ she exclaimed perversely. ‘I know you will never speak to any third person of me so warmly as you do to me of him.’
‘But you don’t understand, Elfride,’ he said with an anxious movement. ‘You shall know him some day. He is so brilliant – no, it isn’t exactly brilliant; so thoughtful – nor does thoughtful express him – that it would charm you to talk to him. He’s a most desirable friend, and that isn’t half I could say.’
‘I don’t care how good he is; I don’t want to know him, because he comes between me and you. You think of him night and day, ever so much more than of anybody else; and when you are thinking of him, I am shut out of your mind.’
‘No, dear Elfride; I love you dearly.’
‘And I don’t like you to tell me so warmly about him when you are in the middle of loving me. Stephen, suppose that I and this man Knight of yours were both drowning, and you could only save one of us – ’
‘Yes – the stupid old proposition – which would I save?
‘Well, which? Not me.’
‘Both of you,’ he said, pressing her pendent hand.
‘No, that won’t do; only one of us.’
‘I cannot say; I don’t know. It is disagreeable – quite a horrid idea to have to handle.’
‘A-ha, I know. You would save him, and let me drown, drown, drown; and I don’t care about your love!’
She had endeavoured to give a playful tone to her words, but the latter speech was rather forced in its gaiety.
At this point in the discussion she trotted off to turn a corner which was avoided by the footpath, the road and the path reuniting at a point a little further on. On again making her appearance she continually managed to look in a direction away from him, and left him in the cool shade of her displeasure. Stephen was soon beaten at this game of indifference. He went round and entered the range of her vision.
‘Are you offended, Elfie? Why don’t you talk?’
‘Save me, then, and let that Mr. Clever of yours drown. I hate him. Now, which would you?’
‘Really, Elfride, you should not press such a hard question. It is ridiculous.’
‘Then I won’t be alone with you any more. Unkind, to wound me so!’ She laughed at her own absurdity but persisted.
‘Come, Elfie, let’s make it up and be friends.’
‘Say you would save me, then, and let him drown.’
‘I would save you – and him too.’
‘And let him drown. Come, or you don’t love me!’ she teasingly went on.
‘And let him drown,’ he ejaculated despairingly.
‘There; now I am yours!’ she said, and a woman’s flush of triumph lit her eyes.
‘Only one earring, miss, as I’m alive,’ said Unity on their entering the hall.
With a face expressive of wretched misgiving, Elfride’s hand flew like an arrow to her ear.
‘There!’ she exclaimed to Stephen, looking at him with eyes full of reproach.
‘I quite forgot, indeed. If I had only remembered!’ he answered, with a conscience-stricken face.
She wheeled herself round, and turned into the shrubbery. Stephen followed.
‘If you had told me to watch anything, Stephen, I should have religiously done it,’ she capriciously went on, as soon as she heard him behind her.
‘Forgetting is forgivable.’
‘Well, you will find it, if you want me to respect you and be engaged to you when we have asked papa.’ She considered a moment, and added more seriously, ‘I know now where I dropped it, Stephen. It was on the cliff. I remember a faint sensation of some change about me, but I was too absent to think of it then. And that’s where it is now, and you must go and look there.’
‘I’ll go at once.’
And he strode away up the valley, under a broiling sun and amid the deathlike silence of early afternoon. He ascended, with giddy-paced haste, the windy range of rocks to where they had sat, felt and peered about the stones and crannies, but Elfride’s stray jewel was nowhere to be seen. Next Stephen slowly retraced his steps, and, pausing at a cross-road to reflect a while, he left the plateau and struck downwards across some fields, in the direction of Endelstow House.
He walked along the path by the river without the slightest hesitation as to its bearing, apparently quite familiar with every inch of the ground. As the shadows began to lengthen and the sunlight to mellow, he passed through two wicket-gates, and drew near the outskirts of Endelstow Park. The river now ran along under the park fence, previous to entering the grove itself, a little further on.
Here stood a cottage, between the fence and the stream, on a slightly elevated spot of ground, round which the river took a turn. The characteristic feature of this snug habitation was its one chimney in the gable end, its squareness of form disguised by a huge cloak of ivy, which had grown so luxuriantly and extended so far from its base, as to increase the apparent bulk of the chimney to the dimensions of a tower. Some little distance from the back of the house rose the park boundary, and over this were to be seen the sycamores of the grove, making slow inclinations to the just-awakening air.
Stephen crossed the little wood bridge in front, went up to the cottage door, and opened it without knock or signal of any kind.
Exclamations of welcome burst from some person or persons when the door was thrust ajar, followed by the scrape of chairs on a stone floor, as if pushed back by their occupiers in rising from a table. The door was closed again, and nothing could now be heard from within, save a lively chatter and the rattle of plates.
Chapter VIII
‘Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord.’
The mists were creeping out of pools and swamps for their pilgrimages of the night when Stephen came up to the front door of the vicarage. Elfride was standing on the step illuminated by a lemon-hued expanse of western sky.
‘You never have been all this time looking for that earring?’ she said anxiously.
‘Oh no; and I have not found it.’
‘Never mind. Though I am much vexed; they are my prettiest. But, Stephen, what ever have you been doing – where have you been? I have been so uneasy. I feared for you, knowing not an inch of the country. I thought,
