Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/158

 of old, but there was an unseeing look in his eyes. The brown soldier-face was leaner, and less brown than it had been a week ago. Certainly he needed a change.

The vicarage was on the outskirts of the village, far back from the road. A brook ran through the meadow into which the gate opened, and before reaching the lawns and gardens which surrounded the pretty, low-built old house, pedestrians and carriages had to cross a rustic bridge. Sir Ian was on foot, and as he neared the bridge, he was obliged to step aside for an approaching victoria. When he saw that Maud Ricardo and Terry were in it, he stood with his hat off, pale and unsmiling.

If he had hoped that the two ladies would pass on with a bow, he must have been disappointed, for Maud stopped her coachman instantly.

"Oh, Sir Ian," she said, "I'm so glad to see you. Have you heard from Norman?"

"Yes," he returned. "He wrote me a good letter. I haven't answered it yet, but I will."

"He won't expect that. No one does expect answers—to such letters. Is it true that you're going away?"

"Yes," said Sir Ian. "I am going."

"Will you be gone many weeks?"

"I don't know," he said. And then his eyes met Terry's, in a long gaze, which seemed to say something which she yearned to understand, yet could not. It