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"That must surely be Stephen Radley," spoke Freda in a whisper, as one voice, more rich and mellow than the others, seemed to detach itself and float upwards in a flood of melody. All eyes were fixed aloft, all ears strained to catch the sounds. The power and extraordinary sweetness of the voice held the multitude spellbound.
"Freda, dear, what is the matter?" asked Cora in sympathetic tones, for she saw tears in the other's eyes. "Oh, it's money matters. You know we own or at least we thought we did a large tract of land at Crystal Bay." "Crystal Bay!" exclaimed Cora, in surprise. "Yes. It was Grandfather Lewis's homestead.
He had gained a striking success, it is true, but he had lost Freda; he was in the position of the starving man who has received a gift of bon-bons, but so craves for bread that they half sicken him. I used now and then to watch his face when, as often happened, someone said: "What an enviable fellow you are, Vaughan, to get on like this!" or, "What wouldn't I give to change places with you!"
"Verily yes, and I will go and show myself, and reassure her," cried Dalaber, throwing on his cloak and cap. "I have time enough and to spare to set my things in order later. I have not seen Freda for full three days. I must e'en present myself tonight."
Edmund issued boldly from the wood, and, waiting till Freda's steps, as she passed backwards and forwards, took her to the farthest point from the guards, he approached her. "Freda," he said, "do not start or betray surprise, for you are watched." At the sound of his voice the girl had paused in her steps, and exclaimed in a low voice, "Edmund!" and then, obeying his words, stood motionless.
His gratitude to those who had brought him forth from the prison and set him in this fair place was expressed again and again. But once, in answer to something Freda spoke, he said with a wonderful lighting of the eyes: "And yet, if you can believe it, we were strangely happy even there, for the Lord was in the midst of us, as surely as He is here amid this peace and loveliness.
'This is too exhausting! muttered Mr Gwynne, sinking back in his chair. 'Freda, you really do talk too much. Will you ring for Perkins? I must take a dose of that cordial. When the cordial was mentioned, Freda knew that all conversation was at an end. She rang the bell, and when Perkins came, left the room. She went at once to her writing desk, and wrote the following note:
Dalaber would fain have been off that moment, but he saw the force of Arthur's words; and, in truth, the long strain was telling heavily upon him, and as he stood he almost reeled from weakness. He was in no fit state for another day's riding; and when Freda added her voice to that of Arthur, he consented to put off his journey until after Easter.
Somehow Freda learnt about that will, and, being no bread-and-butter miss, content meekly to adore her fiance and deem him faultless, she 'up and spake' on the subject, and I fancy poor Lawrence must have had another mauvais quart d'heure. It was not this, however, which led to a final breach between them; it was something which Sir Richard discovered with regard to Lawrence's life at Dover.
It is just possible that he was a countryman of yours, for his name was Jones. 'Oh, Serena! you don't mean to say that you fell in love with a Jones in England, and then came into Wales to be in the midst of that very ancient and numerous family. 'I have not come to the love part yet, Freda. He was a very quiet and unobtrusive person, but, my friends said, very amiable and sufficiently clever.
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