Volume I Part 25 (1/2)

”You saw him fall! Margaret, what an adventure, and did he speak to you?

Did he see you? Who was there?”

”His boat's crew brought him home, you said?” and Margaret, who could not enter into all the particulars, just turned wearily over as though anxious to be left alone.

And Grace turned away. Margaret had seen him fall, but this was all, she thought.

That evening brought Mr. Sandford to Lornbay. Grace was the first to greet him, and any emotion that might have marked the meeting was entirely swept away by her coolness.

Margaret felt more, but she was struck by a look of worry and ill health visible in his face, and she was sorry for him, and her sorrow gave her manner a kindness he was not prepared for. He did not trouble them much with his society, but went off to discover when Mr. Drayton was likely to arrive; an unexpected smoothness had characterized his meeting with the girls, for which he felt duly thankful.

There were numbers of letters awaiting Mr. Drayton's arrival. Several in the well-known hand of his manager, the man who so steadily opposed all schemes, such as the very one Mr. Sandford was there to press upon him.

Not unnaturally, the landlord, and every one else connected with the place, was full of the terrible accident which had brought Sir Albert Gerald to the hotel, and it was also feared to his grave, for he was very ill. One arm was broken in two places, and he had sustained, it was feared, some internal injuries, which rendered his recovery problematical.

Mr. Sandford heard without more than a pa.s.sing interest the story of the accident, told with that minute attention to unimportant details, that characterises a narration in the hands of those to whom all strange events appear in an exaggerated form. He did not know this man's name, though one day he was destined to know it well. He was sorry for him and that was all.

The person who felt Mr. Sandford's arrival to be of very real importance was Lady Lyons--next to her, her son. Lady Lyons, who always saw less or considerably more in every action which touched her in any way, and of course her son, came to a conclusion immediately.

”This I consider good,” she said to the amazed young man, continuing a thought aloud as she sometimes did, and thereby somewhat bewildering him.

”Mother! What do you consider good?”

”Mr. Sandford's arrival; is it possible, my dear Paul, you do not understand the full importance of this. Have you not realized what this means?”

”Certainly not.”

”Men are so dreadfully dense,” said the mother, with a gesture of impatience.

”Will you enlighten me, since I am only a man and so dense.” He spoke in a tone of good-humoured banter.

”My dear Paul,” she began, looking at him with much affection, ”you have been a dear good son, a dutiful son, and in this instance I am sure a wise one--you have kept away from Margaret Rivers till something was known. Do you not see now in the arrival of Mr. Sandford an anxiety to see--not his nieces, from whom he parted not so long ago--but you, Paul, _you_! He has probably heard something from Mrs. Dorriman (in that quarter, my boy, I have not left a stone unturned), and he _may_ have heard that Margaret is inclined to respond. Eh! Paul? You see therefore he comes himself to know if you are worthy!”

”My poor, dear mother,” said Paul, ”if men are dense as you say, still the imagination of women is quite beyond belief.”

”Imagination founded on fact, my dear Paul.”

”Mother,” he began, in a tone of which she could not comprehend the bitterness, ”will it wound you to know that in this matter I was not so dutiful a son? Forgive me, but love was stronger than duty. I tried hard to win Margaret, I pleaded with her, she must have seen that I was in earnest, she must have known I loved her.... She refused me, mother, refused me as one beneath her, and she was right, she said I was a boy and a trifler. I have told you, as you were building false hopes, but I cannot speak of it again.”