exhaustion is less than we feared it would be.'
'Gannet is there?'
'He is in an arm-chair in the room.'
'And Dr. Shrapnel?'
'He does not bear speaking to; he is quiet.'
'He is attached to my nephew?'
'As much as to life itself.'
Lord Romfrey thanked Lydiard courteously. 'Let us hope, sir, that some day I shall have the pleasure of entertaining you, as well as another friend of yours.'
'You are very kind, my lord.'
The earl stood at the door to see Colonel Halkett drive off: he declined to accompany him to Mount Laurels.
In the place of the carriage stood a man, who growled 'Where's your horsewhip, butcher?'
He dogged the earl some steps across the common. Everard returned to his hotel and slept soundly during the remainder of the dark hours.
CHAPTER LII
QUESTION OF A PILGRIMAGE AND AN ACT OF PENANCE
Then came a glorious morning for sportsmen. One sniffed the dews, and could fancy fresh smells of stubble earth and dank woodland grass in the very streets of dirty Bevisham. Sound sleep, like hearty dining, endows men with a sense of rectitude, and sunlight following the former, as a pleasant spell of conversational ease or sweet music the latter, smiles a celestial approval of the performance: Lord Romfrey dismissed his anxieties. His lady slightly ruffled him at breakfast in a letter saying that she wished to join him. He was annoyed at noon by a message, wherein the wish was put as a request. And later arrived another message, bearing the character of an urgent petition. True, it might be laid to the account of telegraphic brevity.
He saw Dr. Shrapnel, and spoke to him, as before, to thank him for the permission to visit his nephew. Nevil he contemplated for the space of five minutes. He cordially saluted Miss Denham. He kissed Cecilia's hand.
'All here is going on so well that I am with you for a day or two to- morrow,' he despatched the message to his wife.
Her case was now the gravest. He could not understand why she desired to be in Bevisham. She must have had execrable dreams!—rank poison to mothers.
However, her constitutional strength was great, and his pride in the restoration of his House by her agency flourished anew, what with fair weather and a favourable report from Dr. Gannet: The weather was most propitious to the hopes of any soul bent on dispersing the shadows of death, and to sportsmen. From the windows of his railway carriage he beheld the happy sportsmen stalking afield. The birds whirred and dropped just where he counted on their dropping. The smoke of the guns threaded to dazzling silver in the sunshine. Say what poor old Nevil will, or did say, previous to the sobering of his blood, where is there a land like England? Everard rejoiced in his country temperately. Having Nevil as well,—of which fact the report he was framing in his mind to deliver to his wife assured him—he was rich. And you that put yourselves forward for republicans and democrats, do you deny the aristocracy of an oaklike man who is young upon the verge of eighty?
These were poetic flights, but he knew them not by name, and had not to be ashamed of them.
Rosamund met him in the hall of the castle. 'You have not deceived me, my dear lord,' she said, embracing him. 'You have done what you could for me. The rest is for me to do.'
He reciprocated her embrace warmly, in commendation of her fresher good looks.
She asked him, 'You have spoken to Dr. Shrapnel?'
He answered her, 'Twice.'
The word seemed quaint. She recollected that he was quaint.
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