Page:Braddon--Wyllard's weird.djvu/85

Rh of the East is charged with complications of that kind. If your cousin is a man of honour, and if we can unriddle the railway mystery, all may yet come right. Pray do not be too anxious. Good-bye."

And so they parted, they two, who once were to have spent their lives together. Edward Heathcote walked away from Penmorval loving his old love as dearly as ever he had loved her in his passionate youth. He was young enough to love with youthful fervour even yet, although he had schooled himself to believe that youth was past for him. He was only thirty-six; Julian Wyllard's junior by nearly ten years.

Half an hour later Dora was presiding at afternoon tea in the yew-tree arbour, where her husband joined her after two hours' business talk with his land-steward. The weather was still warm enough for drinking tea out of doors, and this yew-tree arbour was Mrs. Wyllard's favourite retreat.

"How pale and tired you are looking, Julian!" she said, scrutinising her husband's face as he sank somewhat wearily into the comfortable basket-chair she had placed ready for him; "you must want some tea very badly."

"I always enjoy my afternoon cup; and you are the queen of tea-makers," answered Wyllard; "yes, I have had a tiresome talk with Gretton, who is getting old and prosy, and repeats himself infernally when he is describing the tenants' wants and grievances. He cannot tell me of the smallest repair required for a barn or pig-sty without repeating every syllable of his conversation with some garrulous old farmer, and even explaining the nature of the barn or the sty in dumb-show, 'as it might be this,' and 'as it might be that.' He maddens me with his 'as it might be.'"

"I am afraid you are growing nervous, Julian," said Dora tenderly.

She laid her cool white hand upon his forehead, and looked concerned at the touch.

"You are actually feverish. You have been irritated into a fever by that prosy old man. Why do you not superannuate poor old Gretton, and let Bothwell be your steward? He is much cleverer and more business-like than you think, and at the worst he would not prose."

"I never thought Bothwell a fit person to look after my estate, and I think him less so now," answered her husband coldly. "He is the most unpopular man in Bodmin. Do not let us talk about it any more. By the way, you have had a visitor this afternoon," he continued, as his wife handed him his tea. "I saw Heathcote go past the library-window while I was at work with Gretton. What brought him to Penmorval?"

"I asked him to come," answered Dora, very pale, but with a steadfast look in her eyes, and about the firmly-moulded lips.